Moments of Grace - Season Three, Act Two: Evidence of Absence
by Parlanchina
Summary: Sometimes it's the things that are missing which define us. Still reeling from recent events, Grace and her friends at the BAU are faced with one of their grisliest cases yet, a series of murders among the privileged students of a private school and an attack at the heart of the BAU. AU Complete!
1. Identity

_Another day, another brutal murder, eh? Thanks for spotting my glaring proofing errors, ChasingWolves, I clearly wasn't with it when I posted this :) Enjoy!_

Essential listening: Can't Trust Anyone, Oh No Not Stereo

0o0

Grace Pearce opened her inbox with the weary acceptance of an FBI agent who knew that the standard working email traffic in the BAU was roughly proportional to the number of people on the planet. When she'd looked first thing there had been seven hundred, just over half of which weren't relevant to her, or counted as interdepartmental spam. She'd managed to whittle it down to about two hundred with things that only needed one or two sentences, and then finally started on the real emails.

Honestly.

They'd only been out of the office for two days.

She glared at the four hundred and thirteen new emails in her inbox and resigned herself to a morning of near pointless electronic platitudes. Really, it would be so much simpler if they all went back to writing letters; at least with something physical you had to think about a message before you sent it.

Instant communication had a lot to answer for, in Grace's book.

She spared half a glance for Doctor Spencer Reid, who was, at present, sitting on SSA Derek Morgan's desk, waxing lyrical about physics and Star Wars. From the expression on Morgan's face, the current topic was unwelcome, even for someone currently reading a report on a serial strangler in Massachusetts.

Although the majority of the team would probably be described as nerds by the general population (both Morgan and SSA Emily Prentiss were Vonnegut fans, Garcia spent half her time at sci-fi conventions and SSA Aaron Hotchner occasionally quoted Shakespeare when he was bored) Reid could go on four hours when something got him started.

Grace shared a smile with Prentiss, who looked like Reid was somehow boring a _Star Wars_ shaped hole in her brain.

"A popular theory among leading astrophysicists estimates that the hyper-matter reactor would need about ten to the thirty-second joules of energy to destroy a planet the size of Earth," Reid said, utterly absorbed.

Morgan shot Grace a despairing look over the partition between their desks. She turned back to her emails and pushed her unruly, honey coloured hair out of her eyes, smiling slightly.

"Now, Lucas said that it took nineteen years to build the first Death Star," Reid continued. "But if you look at _The New Essential Chronology_ , there's a test-bed prototype for a super laser that's been –"

Grace looked up as Morgan got to his feet. The movement even derailed Reid.

"Where are you going?" he asked, watching his friend leave.

"Takin' back the last five minutes of my life," said Morgan, making a beeline for SSA David Rossi's office, which had just been vacated by the decorators.

Reid got up and followed him.

"You can't go in there," he frowned.

For a moment he looked so much like the nerdy kid in class who knows his friends are going to get him into trouble, but hasn't yet resigned himself to the detention that is coming, that Grace laughed.

He shot her a withering look and she shook her head, smiling.

"Don't you wanna know about this guy?" Morgan asked, waiting for him to catch up.

"I do," said Emily, sticking her hand up and joining Morgan on the stairs.

"No, I'm good," said Grace, watching her colleagues with amusement.

"You really gonna pass this up, Pearce?" Morgan asked, teasing her.

"Pretty sure. Hey, when you guys when through my desk when I first arrived, did you happen to find a stapler? I'm sure I'm supposed to have one."

"We never went through your desk," said Emily, laughing.

"Oh?" said Grace innocently, raising her eyebrows. "So what's so different about him?"

She nodded at the door to Rossi's office. It was ajar, tempting her fellow agents just enough to drive them insane.

"You've seen how he is," Morgan said, darkly.

Grace made a non-committal sound and turned back to her emails. Rossi had been out of the game for a while, but he was learning – and his years of experience made him a great sounding board. The fact that Morgan didn't like him didn't mean he wouldn't be an asset to the team.

Morgan didn't like change, and there had been a lot of that lately. There was just something about Rossi's old-fashioned style of working that rubbed him the wrong way. They'd get over it, it would just take a little time.

"I wonder if Garcia knows a way to redirect some of this crap…"

For a few moments, she felt their eyes on her, but she ignored them. She had got herself in trouble a lot over the years, but thus far was managing to keep her nose clean in Virginia, and was trying to keep it that way – or, at least, trying to keep her head down as much as possible until her inner imp inevitably burst forth.

"I've got it all memorised – his books, his bio," said Reid, returning to the argument.

She heard Morgan set off up the stairs, Emily close behind him.

"Yeah, books that sold over a million copies," said Morgan.

"So?"

It sounded like Reid was lingering behind his friends, not wanting to intrude.

"That's a million reasons not to come back, if you know what I'm sayin'."

Morgan's voice grew quieter as he passed into Rossi's office. Grace looked up in time to see Reid shoot one last, reluctant, glance at her before hurrying after Morgan and Prentiss.

"Peer pressure," she murmured, fondly. "Gets them every time."

Giving up on the emails, she decided to hunt down Garcia and see if she knew any electronic shortcuts. Halfway out of her chair she spotted David Rossi, watching the door to his office like a hawk, clearly entertained.

 _Uh oh_ , she thought.

0o0

He'd seen the little pantomime play out across the bullpen with mild amusement. The younger members of his team looked like a bunch of high-schoolers sneaking into the principal's office – all except Pearce. He glanced at her desk. In the time he'd been watching the office she seemed to have evaporated.

Well, if they wanted to play it that way…

He waited until Doctor Reid was inside the office before moving to just outside the door.

"… it's a new chapter for him?" Prentiss said.

Rossi guessed they had been trying to profile his bare walls. He smirked. He could have some fun with this.

"Whatever happened to the moratorium on inter-team profiling, guys?" Reid asked.

Rossi smiled. So, that was a thing, was it? He supposed they didn't really think of him as part of their team, yet.

"Come on Reid, 'team'?" he heard Morgan scoff. "I don't think this guy knows this meanin' of the word."

There was a pause including a rustle of fabric. Rossi imagined Morgan rooting around under the dust sheets covering his new desk.

"I found somethin'," the younger agent said.

Rossi watched Reid's shadow move further inside to get a better look. Clearly, curiosity was winning out over discretion today.

"Looks like some type o' religious art."

Rossi nodded. That wasn't why he'd bought it, but it was still true.

"Original, maybe?" Morgan asked. "Definitely expensive."

There was the sound of someone expelling air from their cheeks.

"Renaissance art," Reid remarked, sounding impressed. "If that's original…"

"Is it?" Prentiss whispered.

"I don't know, it's kinda hard to tell…" Reid appeared to be taking a closer look at the sketch. Rossi bided his time, curious to hear their assessment of him. "It means he's into the classics."

"What else?" Morgan prompted.

"Uh… Italian, strict Catholic upbringing – probably believes in redemption."

Rossi chuckled. Not bad – not quite right, but not bad. He emerged from behind the door, putting on his very best stern expression. The one he used for serial killers, or when his publisher wanted to sacrifice fact for writing style.

"Oh, I believe in a lotta things," he said casually, enjoying the shock of his appearance run through their startled and guilty looks. "Catholic – yes. Italian American, fifty-two years. Strict upbringing – not so much."

None of them would meet his eyes as he strolled over to Reid.

"Now the artwork, that's fifteenth century original," he said, and was rewarded by all three sets of eyebrows rising in time. "Cost more than my first house – and as for the wall colour? It's just a base coat. Painters'll come in and finish tomorrow."

He managed not to grin as Reid handed him back the sketch. He was about to continue ribbing them for a little while longer, but Pearce stuck her head through the door.

"Oh, there you all are," she said, with a blithe smile. "JJ and Hotch are ready for us." She paused and seemed to take in the chastened expressions of her colleagues. "Unless I'm interrupting?"

He nearly laughed as three of the BAU's finest took the opportunity to scurry past her.

"Agent Pearce?" he asked, as she made to follow them.

She stopped and gave him a politely inquisitive look; he simply met her gaze. After a moment, Pearce smiled slightly and nodded to the sketch.

"May I see?" she asked, confirming his suspicions that she, too, had been eavesdropping.

He held it out and she whistled appreciatively.

"There's something about Renaissance art," she remarked, examining the picture. "The way they captured the movement of the body – it's unlike any other period."

She handed it back and he agreed.

"Don't think too poorly of them," she said, looking at him along her shoulder. "Trust is earned and they don't know you yet."

"And what do you think?" he asked, after a moment. "Do you trust me?"

"Don't know yet," she admitted, and glanced at the bare walls. "I don't trust easily."

"Tough lesson?" he asked, watching her face carefully.

"One I think you've learned, too," she offered, without directly agreeing.

They studied one another for a moment, and Rossi decided to change the subject.

"You weren't tempted?" he asked, nodding after the rest of the team.

"No," she said, quite openly. "If I _was_ going to go snooping I'd have waited until I was sure you were out of the building – or possibly out of the state."

Rossi chuckled.

"Besides," she went on, "I prefer to build up a profile of a colleague by observing their behaviour in person. It's too easy to make an incorrect assumption and run with it."

"And what have you gleaned? What kind of person am I?"

"Complicated," she said, after a moment, and Rossi had to concede that this was true. "As are we all."

Rossi nodded, and in the spirit of the conversation he asked, "You always come to their rescue?"

"Don't generally have to," she laughed. "May I ask you something?"

"Observing me in person?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Something like that," she smiled. "Why did you come back?"

He had been ready for it, but it still surprised him that she had been so direct. He supposed it was just her way of doing things. Well, two could play that game.

"Unfinished business," he told her. "Why did you leave London?"

"Needed a fresh start," she said, without missing a beat. Her smiled broadened. "The truth, but none of the detail. For both of us, I think."

Rossi grinned.

"Something like that," he echoed. "Shall we?"

They walked companionably enough to the conference room where several of the team looked edgier than usual. Agent Pearce seated herself on a filing cabinet at the back of the room.

 _So, she doesn't entirely see herself as a part of the team either,_ thought Rossi.

Whatever she had left behind in England must have been pretty brutal.

"Great Falls, Montana," JJ began, gesturing towards the presentation. "Over the past fourteen months, three women have been reported missing." Rossi took a seat beside Hotch. "Michelle Lawford, Jennifer Hillbridge and Darcy Cranwell. All young, Caucasian brunettes. After an extensive search all were presumed dead by local authorities."

"So, at least we know he has a type," Prentiss observed.

"And now there's a fourth woman missing," said JJ, clicking the screen. "Angela Miller. This morning, she and her car went missing from a small grocery store while her husband and son were inside."

"This morning?" Reid asked, surprised.

"Montana's requesting our help?" Rossi remarked.

He never thought he'd see the day, not after Waco.

It was going to be a long day.


	2. Lucky

Essential listening: Pagan Baby, Creedence Clearwater Revival

0o0

Penelope Garcia walked through the main doors to the BAU bullpen, tripping on air and the flattery of the hottest prospect she'd come across since the staff Christmas party, when Ed from the Computer Fraud unit had drunkenly dragged her underneath the mistletoe.

She was so distracted that she walked straight past Morgan.

"Good mornin', Princess."

"Morning," she said, her mind a million miles away from the FBI.

"Pump your breaks," Morgan declared, stopping mid-step.

Penelope froze, too, and went over to stand with him when he beckoned. She'd thought she'd at least make it through the door, but no…

"Every day I say 'good mornin','" said Morgan, running a quizzical eye over her features. "Every day you say, 'I'll show a good mornin' hot stuff.' Every day. Not today?"

Penelope picked some invisible lint off his shoulder, aware of how irritable she probably looked. It was impossible to fool anyone around here, which was great for catching serial killers, but not so good for her sanity.

"I hate profilers, d'you know that?" she asked, resigned.

He gave her a conspiratorial smile that was already making her feel better.

"Spit it out."

She couldn't help but smile back, shaking her head at herself – and at him.

"Fine," she said. "I met a guy."

"You did what?" Morgan asked, surprised. "Where?"

"Coffee shop. Smokin' hot. I fixed his computer and then he asked for my number," she told him, excited and nervous all at once.

"And you just –"

"Gave it to him," she said, quickly. "Can you believe that? A complete stranger. Did I mention he was smokin' hot?" she added, distracted.

"Uh – yeah, yeah I think you did," Morgan nodded, looking amused. "'kay," he touched her affectionately on the nose. "It happens."

He was about to move away when Penelope realised that she really didn't want him to. She needed to talk about this – and with her best friend. Given there hectic lives, when would they get another chance?

"No – it doesn't," she blurted out, and he turned to look at her. "Not to me, not like this."

"Not like what?" Morgan looked adorably confused and Penelope sighed inwardly.

Of course he wouldn't understand. This sort of thing must happen to him all the time.

"I'm not the girl men see across a smoky bar and write songs about," she clarified, and then continued before he thought she was trying of some kind of pity party. "It's okay, I do just fine. But it – it takes a minute, you know?"

Morgan was grinning now, which made her think he actually did.

"Okay, so what's the problem?" She didn't have an answer for him so he continued, "What, you think it's all happenin' a little too fast, or somethin'?"

"Yes. I don't know… maybe?" she stuttered, her nerves coming to the fore. "What do you think?"

"I think you should always trust your gut," he said flatly. "So, sure, if he seems a little too smooth, or maybe a little too 'smokin' hot', then maybe you should walk the other way."

Penelope thought this was all very well – except how many smokin' hot guys ever showed an interest in her? She was about to say it, too, when JJ hurried past, interrupting her thoughts.

"Hey," she said, moving at speed towards the situation room, distributing files to desks as she went. "We caught a bad one."

"How bad?" Morgan asked, attention already shifting.

"Florida," said JJ, and Morgan raised his eyebrows at Penelope. They both remembered how bad that had been the last time around.

0o0o0o0

Grace groaned audibly when she saw the mutilated remains of the latest young woman in the endless parade of victims. Someone had carved a crude pentacle into her chest. Every so often you got a nutjob with a flair for the dramatic and Grace had seen them all before.

"Window dressing," she murmured, on Reid's glance.

"Bridgewater, Florida," JJ announced. "Local girl, Abbey Kelton, nineteen. Left her parents' home to go to the local junior college. Never came home. Three days later, jogger found her – or, part of her – in a nearby park."

Pretty much the whole room grimaced at the next picture, even JJ, who had been prepared for it. There was nothing left of the poor girl below her hips. A few bits of white, grizzled pelvis bone stuck out.

"What did that to her?" Prentiss asked.

"Bridgewater's off'f I-75," JJ explained. "Which is often referred to as 'Alligator Alley', for reasons that are now apparent. Everything below the waist had been eaten."

"I'm suddenly glad that there are no large predators left in the wild in the UK," Grace muttered, taking a closer look at the carnage. It was (happily) rare to see someone who had been so obviously gnawed upon. The absence of her lower body was jarring; uncomfortable to look at.

"Ah, the circle of life," Rossi remarked.

Prentiss nodded, "Suddenly I don't feel so bad about my alligator wallet."

"Alligators didn't cut off her fingers, slit her throat or carve this into her chest," said Hotch, who had been reading the autopsy report. He slid one or two of the more graphic images over to the rest of the team.

"An inverted pentagram," said Morgan.

"Technically," Grace observed, studying the photo, "that's not inverted.* It's point upwards," she continued, as everyone glanced her way. "Which is standard – associated with Wiccans and hedge witchery. Point downwards would be inverted – it's supposed to mimic the goat-like horns of the devil that way up. Also, when it's encircled like that it's called a pentacle."

"Huh," said Morgan, looking back at the late Miss Kelton. "Though it's possible the UnSub made the same mistake."

Grace nodded.

"Locals believe the killings were committed by some kind of cult," said JJ, and Grace rolled her eyes.

"They always do," she huffed, as Rossi remarked, "Some things never change."

They gave one another a wry smile.

"Killer satanic cults don't exist," said Prentiss. "They were debunked – it's a suburban myth."

There was a moment where everyone stared at Prentiss. Grace frowned, feeling that she'd missed something.

"What?" Emily asked, watching Hotch smile down at his own file.

"Rossi's the one that debunked them," Reid explained.

Grace couldn't quite hide her smirk. Rossi gave the younger agent a smile that Prentiss looked quite uncomfortable about.

"Oh, right," she said, awkwardly. "Thanks."

"This is your area," said Hotch, rescuing Prentiss with a glance at Grace. "What do you see?"

"Well," said Grace, as everybody turned to her. "Mutilation is a common facet in so called occult killings. The fingers strike me as off, though."

"How so?" asked Prentiss, glad to be out of the spotlight for a moment.

"Well, criminal satanists – or those who tend to identify as such – are, by nature, exhibitionists," she explained. "They can suppress it around others, but not around their victims – hence the calling card."

She tapped the pentacle with her pencil.

"The 'ooh, look at me, I'm so clever and deviant' thing. They can't help it and that would come out in their choice of trophy, or ritualised body part. Heads and hearts," she said, with a frown. "Not fingers – unless there's a heavy voodoo, creole, or Native American tradition in Bridgewater."

"No," said JJ, after a brief examination of her notes. "Largely catholic."

Grace nodded slowly.

"Then the fingers are most likely for something other than ritual."

"Care to speculate?" Hotch invited her to continue.

"Not really," said Grace, by which she meant, 'Not out loud'. "I've just had my breakfast."

"Lovely," JJ grimaced.

"Cult or not, the killing was ritualised," Rossi argued. "This'll turn serial if it hasn't already."

"So, killer satanic cults don't exist, but satanic serial killers do?" JJ clarified.

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrante," said Rossi, as he rose from the table, a sardonic smile playing about his lips.

Grace chuckled.

"Well, thank you for clearing that up," JJ griped, as soon as the senior agent was out of earshot.

"Uh – it's from Dante's _Inferno_ ," Reid explained. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

"So that was a 'yes'," said JJ, looking at Hotch.

"A big yes."

Grace watched him go, thoughtfully. He was right, of course, about the cults and the ritualistic aspect, but there was one possibility that had naturally been left out of the conversation. She hadn't broached the subject with anyone since she'd been in Washington, but there was always the possibility at the back of her mind that what they were hunting might not be entirely human, or might be a human that had magic. It wasn't something she wanted to talk about unless she absolutely had to, but a case like this did make you wonder.

She slid her phone out as the others left the room and did the brief mental equation she used to work out the time difference. The UK was ahead, so to speak, so he'd definitely be awake and at work.

"Hey Max, how's tricks?" she said, and grinned when she heard her old friend's voice. "Yeah, not too shabby," she continued, when he'd finished telling her about his weekend.

That was the great thing about Max. He always treated you like you'd never been away.

"I was wondering if I could pick your brains…" She broke off, laughing, and Hotch (who had also lingered in the situation room) gave her a funny look. "No, I said 'pick', not 'pickle', you dozy –" she stopped herself just in time, aware of her audience. "Listen, what do you know about ritual magic involving fingers?"

0o0

 _Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters._

 _Francis Goya_

0o0

"Then you have your general, basic level nasties, who fall into the occult because it gives them a sense of belonging and rationalisation," said Grace. "But the ones who gravitate towards satanic ritual tend to be students of history and religion – either amateur or professional. Methodical, hard to catch out – they put a lot of faith in textual stuff and don't often deviate from it. Or, they're the worse kind, the serious whacko who gets off on hurting people and needs someone to blame for those urges. They're all variations of the mission-based killer, really."

They'd been discussing the occult angle of the murder for some time, which had allowed Grace to expand upon her earlier remarks. This particular commentary had come as a result of Prentiss making a flippant comment about evil witches and paganism, which had devolved into an argument about the different aspects of non-mainstream faith.

If there hadn't been a murderer to catch, Grace could happily have argued back and forth all day. It had become clear that – while their definitions agreed over every other type of UnSub, she and Rossi had wildly different approaches to the occult, probably because Grace knew that sometimes it was real.

"The other common factor," said Grace, sipping her tea, "is that generally they're loners, either from social ineptitude, arrogance, or a fear of rejection. About the least likely thing this type of occult offender is going to do is join a cult."

"We never found any evidence of a killer satanic cult," Rossi agreed. "In reality there are only two types of violent satanic criminal."

"Uh – type one, teen Satanists, assume the satanic identity to rebel," said Reid. It took Grace a moment to realise he was quoting Rossi's books. "Minor crimes, theft and vandalism to churches, schools, symbols of authority. When combined with drugs and alcohol, they may turn violent."

Grace marvelled at her friend's ability to be a human recording device for a moment before turning to Rossi with curious eyes, wondering how he would react. The senior agent was giving Reid a very strange look.

"Yes – and in extreme cases, deadly," said Rossi, puzzled. "That was out of my book, word for word."

Grace had to duck her head in order to hide her smirk.

"Oh, trust us," said Morgan, amused. "We know."

"Killings are accidental, usually resulting from their hobby getting out of control," Reid continued, entirely failing to notice the expressions on his colleagues' faces.

Rossi was wearing a familiar expression, which Grace recognised as a sane person's reaction to appreciating Reid's general level of data-retention for the first time. It must have been particularly disconcerting to hear the words he himself had written being spouted back as if committed to heart.

"Killings won't turn serial –" Reid went on, but Morgan took pity on him and Rossi and interrupted.

"Hey, Reid."

Pointedly, he glanced over at Rossi, who was clearly uncomfortable, and made 'stop it now' motion at his friend. Reid followed his gaze and caught the strange mix of offence and confusion on his face. He fell silent, which was something of a relief all round.

"Sorry," he whispered, and looked down at his file, embarrassed.

"Okay, so that's one type," said Prentiss, eager to moving things along. "What's type two?"

"The adaptive satanist is the one you have to worry about," said Rossi. "A typical serial killer, rationalising his fantasies by blaming them on outside forces."

"Like Satan?" JJ asked, still a little incredulous.

"Yes. He adopts satanic beliefs to fit his specific homicidal drives," Rossi told her. "He doesn't kill because he believes in Satan, he believes in Satan because he kills."

Grace nodded.

"And the more he gets away with it, the more he believes that his 'god' is looking out for him," she said. "His god must want him to do it because nobody can stop him. It's a self-sustaining delusion."

"Well, let's hope it's the teenagers," Hotch remarked. "Whether you're religious or not, the presence of satanic elements can affect even the most experience investigators – and we're not immune. So, keep an eye on the locals and keep an eye on each other."

 _And I'll keep an eye out for anything that's a bit too real,_ Grace added, in the privacy of her own mind.

"Hey, I hear you," said JJ, "I saw _The Exorcist_."

"My mother took us to church every Sunday until I moved out," Morgan mused, making a dismissive gesture. "This whole devil thing doesn't spook me at all."

 _It only matters that they believe it, not that we do,_ Grace thought, and was about to say it, but Reid beat her to it.

"Maybe that's because you never truly bought the God part, either," he said, oblivious to tact.

There was one of those moments where you could see that he knew that he'd said something wrong because everyone was looking at him funny, but didn't know what or why.

Morgan's expression could have curdled milk, but he was used to Reid, so his tone was fairly soft when he said, "No offence, kid, but you don't know what I believe."

"Well, I mean," Reid continued, in a hurry to clarify his reasoning in case that would help, "Logic dictates that if you believe in the one, you have to reconcile the existence of the other."

Grace closed her eyes, briefly. He was right, of course, but that didn't mean Morgan wouldn't take offence. It was obvious that religion was a bit of a touchy subject, there.

"I don't know," she said aloud, hoping to diffuse the tension a little. "I think hell is something you carry around with you, not somewhere you go," she said, quoting Gaiman.

Reid shot her a brief look of gratitude, though she was relatively sure he still had no idea what he'd done.

"People's reactions to Satan is what gives it appeal to these offenders," said Hotch, diplomatically steering them back on course. "It has power – and it would be a mistake to underestimate it."

0o0o0o0

Florida was stickier even than New Orleans, which Grace had thought was impossible. It was making her brain feel addled and slow, like someone had boiled it. Thankfully, the station had air conditioning, but it wasn't entirely helping.

Everyone she spoke to – with the exception of two of the senior cops on the case – seemed to think there was a nest of satanists hiding behind every corner. She was beginning to wonder of some of the paranoia could be attributed to the heat.

"There's no evidence that any of the local kids were into devil worship or the occult," said Morgan.

Grace glanced up at him. There was a tension to him that she didn't recognise; he had spent the last ten minutes pacing and every time the church or religion came up (which was every other sentence right now) he seemed to get more annoyed. It wasn't like Morgan at all.

"This is not a group of teenagers," said Prentiss.

"It's a serial killer," Morgan agreed.

"And considering what he did with their fingers, a sadistic one," Emily continued.

"I wouldn't say that just yet," Rossi put in.

"The ritual element," Grace nodded. "It might not be about torture for him."

Something had been bugging her about the fingers. She'd shard her concern with Hotch in the car on the way over, but she wasn't sure enough to broach it with the rest of the team. She didn't want to muddy the profile or send them off in the wrong direction if she was wrong

Emily gave her and Rossi a look that spoke volumes.

"He cut off her fingers and he made her eat them," she stated, blankly. "If that isn't sadistic –"

"If it was, that's the only sign of sadism present in the crime," Rossi argued.

Emily nodded, slowly.

"If he was purely a sadist there would be more signs of torture," she realised.

"The fingers are a message," Rossi stated.

"What the hell's the message?" Morgan asked as Hotch came in.

"She's not my first," she said, and nodded at Grace. "You were right, none of the fingers found in Abbey Kelton's stomach were hers."

Grace grimaced. She'd really been hoping to be wrong about that one.

"And six of them were index fingers."

0o0o0o0

Morgan slumped in a chair in an empty office that the Bridgewater Police Department had kindly allowed him to use. He had case notes to go through and something about this case was really getting to him. A snatched twenty minutes away from his colleagues where he could collect his thoughts and get himself centred again was just what he needed.

The kid didn't know it, but Reid's comment on the jet had caught him off guard and after Rossi throwing him under the bus with Father Marks… He knew he was a little off his game and he was well aware that the rest of the team knew it, too. He needed a chance to regroup.

His face brightened when his phone buzzed. Talking to Penelope Garcia was a guarantee of feeling better. Even the sound of his best friend's voice made the world made the world seem lighter somehow, like she personally preserved a part of it that the awful things she saw day after day couldn't reach.

"Hey, what you got for me, girl?"

"I just sent you ten separate IDs belonging to the ten fingers found in Abbey Kelton's stomach," she said, her voice sounding tired and heavy. "No two fingers belonged to the same woman."

"Ten," he repeated, feeling his stomach drop. "You identified them already?"

"Mmm," said Garcia. "Forty-plus prostitution arrests made it easy. They worked truck stops and rest areas in the counties surrounding Bridgewater."

"Well, the UnSub knows the area well," commented Morgan.

"Clearly," said Garcia, and now he know something was wrong. "Gotta go – bye."

"Woah, woah, woah," he said. "What, no snappy retort? What's goin' on?"

"Not in the mood."

"Penelope?"

There was a pause, which didn't do anything to make him less worried.

"Uh – that guy from the coffee shop asked me out and I took your advice and I blew him off," she explained, haltingly.

Morgan winced. He hadn't actually meant to advise her against it – it was just that she'd seemed so anxious about it.

"Oh, um… Well, good," he said, trying to reassure her. "Smart move. Somethin' was definitely wrong there."

"Wow," she said, and he could actually feel the atmosphere turn frosty over the phone. "You are some profiler. You could tell how wrong he was from what little he told you."

She sounded hurt.

"Garcia, I didn't mean –"

"I wonder, was it that he was too handsome, or too interested in me that tipped you off on how 'wrong' he was?"

"Garcia – I –"

"Just 'cause you wouldn't cross a crowded room to hit on me does not mean that a more perceptive, less superficial guy wouldn't." He could hear the anger in her voice, and something else: tears. "Hey Derek, you want snappy? You _suck_!"

She slammed down the receiver without a force that jarred him. He stared at the phone, bewildered. He hadn't meant any of that – surely Garcia could see that he was only trying to look out for her. He certainly hadn't wanted to hurt her. In four years of flirting and working with her, Penelope had never so much as grumbled at him.

He was at a bit of a loss.

Luckily, he was prevented from dwelling too heavily on it by the arrival of Prentiss.

"Hey."

"Hey," he said, frowning. With a struggle, he got his head back into work mode. "Uh – Garcia just ID'ed ten victims."

"Yeah, she's just sent the files through," said Prentiss. She pointed at the top sheet of paper. "Last known locations of the ten victims."

As a map it made for interesting reading.

"Has Hotch seen this?" Morgan asked.

"Yes, Oh yeah. Hotch set up the profile briefing. Uh – we're calling the families, you're briefing the locals."

Garcia would have to wait.

0o0o0o0

Abbey Kelton and ten other women were murdered by a serial killer here in Bridgewater," said Hotch, explaining the map to the local PD.

He, Morgan and Rossi were talking to the small, local task force and they would pass it on to where it was needed. Somewhere, in quiet corners of the station, the rest of the team were informing the victims' families. A grim, but necessary task. They had to stop this now, before eleven women became twelve.

Detective Jordan stared at him in horror.

"Here? How can you be sure?" he asked.

"These marks represent where the first ten disappeared," Hotch nodded at the map. "The void in the centre is his safety zone. He avoids killing near his home to escape detection – and the void's centre is Bridgewater."

"Why would he violate his safety zone?" the detective asked. "No one knew he existed.

"Because no one knew he existed," said Dave. "That's why he left us the fingers."

The detective looked from one profiler to another, somewhat appalled.

"If he wants us to know, does he want us to catch him?"

"No," said Rossi. "Killing gives him power. Our knowing gives him more."

Mogan nodded as Rossi continued, "He won't stop. He's just getting started."

0o0

*I think the art department must have got it the wrong way up – the pentacle on Abbey Kelton is definitely not inverted. The later victims, however, _do_ have inverted pentacles.


	3. Unlucky

Essential listening: Born Under a Bad Sign, Koko Taylor

0o0

"Oh, what does he know? He's a boy – they all smell," said Grace, which made Reid look up from the tyre treads he was examining with an aggrieved expression.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, was he cute?" she clicked her tongue at her friend. "Penelope, put on your big girl pants and call the guy back."

She watched Reid shake his head, clearly despairing of the female race (or of her, at the very least) while Garcia told her that she'd done just that, that Colby had readily agreed and that Derek Morgan sucked.

"He's just looking out for you," she said placatingly. Whatever Morgan had accidentally said, she knew that the last thing he'd have wanted was to upset her. "Anyway, don't you have a search to be doing?"

She could envisage the face that Penelope was currently pulling and it brought a smile to her face.

"Hey, you called me."

"Grace," Spencer beckoned her over to the edge of the road beside the tyre tracks.

"I gotta go."

"Tell Derek he stinks!" Garcia cried.

"Tell him yourself," she hung up good naturedly and crouched down beside Reid. "What've you got?"

"Not sure…" he lifted what might have been a sandwich wrapper out of the bushes. "What was that about?" he added, as he carefully began to unfurl it.

Grace frowned. There was no way to know if it was the killer's – and even if he had parked here, what kind of serial killer brought his lunch to an abduction site?

"Oh, Morgan pissed Garcia off," she said, dismissively. "Don't worry about it – you know them, they'll be friends again by the end of the day."

"Someone was waiting here a while," he remarked. "The tyre treads are pretty deep."

There was a pause as they both looked around.

"So he probably has a job that allows him access to free time during week days."

Reid nodded and then bit his lip.

"Grace, in the jet… uh – did I piss Morgan off?"

She nodded, smiling slightly at his unconscious mimicry; he chewed at his lip again.

"I think Morgan's faith is a touchier subject than any of us realised." She gave the arm that he wasn't holding the sandwich packet a squeeze. "You just touched a nerve, that's all."

He turned his attention back to the wrapper, but she could tell it was still bothering him.

"What's that?"

They peered at the sticky brown smudges.

"Barbecue sauce?" Reid turned it over. "There's no brand or shop name."

"We don't even know it's the UnSub's," Grace reflected.

"Yeah, but there's a limited number of people with a reason to park a car here for an extended period. It rained last night, too, so the tracks had to be made this morning –"

"At the time of the abduction," finished Grace.

After a moment she noticed Reid looking at her.

"What?"

"Girls smell too, you know."

His eyes glittered with unexpected mischief. Grace chuckled. Reid wasn't often in the mood to tease people and she had learned to take advantage of it when he was.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what do I smell of, then?"

"Tea," he answered, almost without thinking. "Mostly, I mean."

She paused for a moment, thinking that this was actually quite a strange conversation. He'd answered far too quickly, too. Fast enough to make her wonder: did she really smell that strongly, or was he just hyper aware of her? And if he _was_ hyper aware of her…

"What do I smell of?" Spencer asked, interrupting her thoughts. He looked curious, though there was still a note of mischief in his voice.

"Coffee, mostly," she quipped, bringing a smile to his lips. "I don't know. Old books, leather, you…" she shrugged. "Most people smell of what they did last, or what they ate for dinner. "Oh…"

"Oh?" said Reid, after a moment, their smiles fading together.

"I've just had a horrible idea about the fingers," she said.

They both glanced at the wrapper.

0o0o0o0

They got back to the rest of the team in time to catch the tail end of an argument. Morgan stalked off and JJ quickly absorbed the volunteers into setting up a search with Father Mark's congregation. Grace had been putting up tables and shelters for the teams while Spencer took Hotch aside and had a quiet word about their barbecue sauce theory where no one else could overhear and freak out.

If nothing else, cannibalism would explain why they weren't finding any bodies. He would be exactly the kind of person who would bring a packed lunch to an abduction site.

She went to help Detective Jordan extract a stack of clipboards from someone's car and practically ran into Morgan, who was concentrating so hard on glaring at Father Marks that he didn't see her. The clipboards fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Aw, sorry Pearce," he said, sounding frustrated. "Here."

He started helping her shove them back into the crate in some semblance of order. Grace stole a glance at the priest. The man looked strained and frightened, though he was putting on a strong face for his community.

"It's not him, you know," she said, watching her friend closely. She saw his shoulders tense.

"Excuse me?"

"Father Marks. He's not the UnSub."

Morgan's gaze flicked past her and landed on the priest; if looks could kill, that one would have.

"This UnSub craves power, right?" Morgan didn't answer, so Grace continued, "Father Marks has plenty of that. The man makes two phone calls and one hundred and fifty people show up to help in the search. _He_ doesn't need to kill to feel powerful."

"He shouldn't be here," Morgan grumbled.

"He's scared, Morgan – if Tracey dies too he'll have lost two members of his congregation in under a week. He's just trying to help. He feels responsible."

Morgan made an angry huffing sound.

"For all we know, the UnSub is one of his congregation, and he should know who it is."

Grace leaned back slightly, sitting on her haunches. He couldn't know how much that particular statement stung.

"That's not how it works and you know it," she said, rather more tartly than she'd intended.

This time, his glare turned on her. Grace was taken aback by the resentment in his eyes – not meant for her, she suspected, but wholly for Father Marks. He shook his head, abandoned the rest of the clipboards and walked away.

"Derek!" she called after him, incredulous. He'd only just met the man.

He turned and she tried to ask, through her body language and expression, just what the hell his problem was, but he simply gave her a sour look and went to stand with Reid and Prentiss by the SUVs.

"Oh, well that's going to help," she muttered, annoyed, and went to help JJ coordinate the volunteer sign in.

The scent of spiced meat wafted past and she looked up to see two men carrying a vast pot of chilli into the sign in area. She was impressed. Really, it was amazing what you could organise in an hour if a community pulled together.

It was a pity, she reflected. The chilli smelled great, but the possibility of cannibalism had put any affection for food out of her head.

0o0o0o0

As a strategy, the search hadn't turned out so well. Not only had they not found Tracey, they'd also managed to provide the UnSub with another victim. On the plus side, that narrowed it down to one of the people on the sign in sheets, but that was still one hell of a lot of possibilities. The new victim's husband was a couple of tables away, pleading with Detective Jordan and Hotch to find his wife before she became the latest sacrifice to the devil.

Emily stirred her station coffee wearily. It just didn't get any easier. This was – and she excused the pun in her own mind – the case from hell. She looked up when Morgan joined her.

"Hey, how's it going with Father Marks?" she asked. Her friend looked tired and annoyed, and being cloistered with a priest, a profile and a list of names wasn't helping. "Any of the volunteers jump out at him?"

"Not yet," he said, as Emily's cell went off.

"Garcia?" she answered, mildly confused.

"I'm still running the particulars of our homicides through VICAP, nothing so far," Garcia reported.

"Okay, I just sent you the volunteer search list," said Emily.

"Okay, I'm cross checking the names against mental institution records."

She sounded busy – all beeps and keyboard hits – but Emily could tell there was something off.

"Pay attention to individuals who were involuntarily committed in Florida," she said. "Rossi's convinced our UnSub's the type that likes to stay close to home."

"Got it. Talk to you later."

"Hey," said Emily, quickly, before Garcia could vanish into telephonic silence. "Garcia, you normally call Morgan about these kinds of things. Is everything okay?"

"God, I hate profilers," Garcia sighed.

"Okay, c'mon, tell me," Emily coaxed.

"I met this guy at the coffee shop I go to every day," Garcia began, and then told Emily exactly why Derek Morgan sucked.

"Right, got it," she said and hung up.

Sometimes, God love them, the guys could be _so_ dim. Some of her annoyance must have registered on her face because Morgan suddenly looked wary and confused.

"What?"

He already sounded defensive, so she knew he'd guessed what they'd been talking about.

"When a woman tells a man about her feelings, she doesn't want him to fix her," said Emily, as gently as she could. "She wants him to shut up and listen."

She left him standing by the refreshment table, looking more bewildered than ever, and went to see if JJ had got anything back from the State Police in Tallahassee, hoping that it had helped.

0o0

Grace heard the voices coming from the interview room and shut the door to the rest of the Police Department behind her before anyone else could. They weren't exactly raised, as such, but they weren't friendly either.

She could see Morgan's back in the doorway and Father Marks in the interview room beyond.

"– I prayed for it to stop," Morgan was saying, practically spitting in the Father's face. "You know what God did? Nothin'."

Grace, who had been about to intercede, paused. The possibility that there was something dark behind Derek's strange animosity towards the priest had crossed her mind; Morgan was usually such a kind and caring soul. It would have to be something truly unpleasant to elicit such a reaction. Though she was curious she hadn't pushed it. After all, she had plenty of secrets that she didn't feel the need to share with the rest of the team any time soon.

Right now, she didn't need to be a profiler to figure out what had been going on with him. Over Morgan's shoulder, she saw Father Marks' expression soften.

"He never gives us more than he can handle," he said, with quiet but fierce conviction.

Grace shook her head. If ever a statement was going to set a victim of child abuse off, that was it.

The venom in his voice was palpable when Morgan replied, "Your God expects way too much of thirteen year old boys."

"Morgan," she interrupted, before the conversation could deteriorate further.

He turned, face dark with anger; Grace nodded to a spot further along the corridor and he followed, scowling. Father Marks retreated back into the interview room as they drew apart.

"What do you want, Pearce?"

She assessed his body language. What he'd said aloud was only the tip of his anger; inside, he was seething – and given the state of the case, that wouldn't help at all. He'd already managed to alienate Garcia today, he didn't need to do that to anyone else.

"You need to take a walk," she said.

A look of annoyed incredulity crossed Derek's handsome features.

"You're givin' orders now, Pearce? You tellin' me what to do?"

"I'm telling you what you need to do," she responded, calmly meeting his gaze.

"Huh."

"Look, I don't know what happened to you when you were a kid, but that man in there has nothing to do with it," she told him, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder into the interview room. "He is distressed and trying his best to help his community, stop taking it out on him."

"Yeah, and what would you know about it?" Morgan asked, the dangerous note in his voice reflected in his eyes.

Grace ignored it; dangerous she could handle.

"I know that religion can make any bad situation feel like you're being punished, like you're not good enough, like you're not worth saving," she said. "Like your prayers aren't being answered and you don't know why. I'm an atheist, too – have been most of my life – but religion isn't like that for all of us. The fact that our faith differs from Father Marks' doesn't give either of us the excuse to piss all over his religion. Right now, that's all he's got to cling to – we have no right to strip him of it, no matter what we think of the church."

Morgan made a sound of acute annoyance and strode out of the corridor, slamming the door behind him.

Grace glared at it, actually quite angry now. She had the distinct feeling of déjà vu, from another time and in another country, where she had been the one slamming the door, leaving another exasperated colleague in her wake. There was no point telling someone something they didn't want to hear.

She shook her head and tried to rearrange her features to something resembling apology rather than frustration and went to talk to Father Marks.


	4. Uncanny

Essential Listening: Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater Revival

0o0

Derek walked into the darkened church, hesitating in the doorway.

Apologies didn't come easily to him, mostly because he liked to keep his friendships in a place where there wasn't any friction, but he had really laid into Father Marks and he knew he had to make it right.

Grace had been right about that; Rossi too, though he hadn't said it aloud. His head had been in the wrong place all day, and Father Marks had been trying to help.

The church was empty, save one lone parishioner, head bent in prayer. Not knowing where else to start, he approached her, speaking softly out of respect. He didn't want to startle her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, um – I'm lookin' for Father Marks."

He glanced up, looking around the church as all the candles on the altar went out as one. Derek stared as them, then glanced behind him to the candles beside the door: all alight. There had been no gust of wind – he would have felt it.

His hand twitched marginally closer to his gun. To a rational man, some things were quite impossible. The world felt suddenly askew and unsettling.

"Did you see that?" he asked the woman, but she didn't seem to hear him. "Ma'am?" he tried again, but she still didn't respond.

Frowning, he tore his attention away from the suddenly gloomy altar and looked a little closer at the sole occupant of the church.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?" He reached out, trying to rouse her. "Ma'am?"

The woman's body twisted sideways on the pew and Derek started in horror. Her skin bore the milky pallor of death, the pentacle (actually inverted this time, according to a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Grace Pearce) scored deep and red into her chest. Like the others, her throat had been cut and her fingers removed – and, like the others, she was missing everything below the waist.

Derek's gun was out and up, purely on instinct, and called in his grisly discovery.

Alligators had not done _that_.

0o0o0o0

They had reconvened.

Grace pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting a cloud of thought destroying exhaustion. She was hungry – all of them were – but none of them really felt like eating now cannibalism was well and truly on the cards.

"Uh, Doctor Fulton confirmed it," said Emily, joining them. "Maria Lopez was frozen shortly after her death."

"Well, that explains why we haven't been able to find the other victims," Morgan remarked, still a little spooked from the incident in the church. "He's keepin' 'em."

"How'd you get to cannibalism?" JJ asked, something akin to despair in her voice.

"He didn't take them for sex and he took their legs," Hotch explained. "He was trying to tell us by feeding the fingers to Abbey Kelton. The fingers _were_ a message. 'I've killed before', was only part of it – 'I'm eating them', was the other."

"Cannibalism, the great taboo," Reid observed, wryly. "That explains his drive to blame his appetite on an outside force."

"And his drive to get the victims to share in the blame," Grace remarked. "If he can get them to eat human flesh too, maybe his own appetite is not so wrong, or whatever."

JJ shook her head, unable to comprehend this new twist.

"Why would anyone wanna eat human flesh?" she asked, quietly.

"It's like a sexual urge," Reid explained. "The cross-wiring of the two most basic human drives – sustenance and sex."

"It all fits," said Morgan.

Emily's phone rang again.

"Hey – Garcia I'm putting you on speaker," she said, sliding the phone to the middle of the desk.

"So, I can't find any patients who have the charming cocktail of being both a satanist and a cannibal," said Garcia. "However, Hazelwood Mental Institution is _the_ place to go when looking for Florida's most dangerous kinds of whackos and they had a fire in 1998 that destroyed their records."

"How far away is Hazelwood?" Hotch asked.

"Seventy miles," said Reid, absently.

"Uh – JJ, tell them we're on this way," Hotch instructed. "Um… Reid?" he asked, gathering his things.

Reid nodded, "Let's do it."

0o0o0o0

It was late and they'd been shown in by a competent looking nurse who motioned for them to be quiet, at least until they were on the administrative floor, where they could talk without disturbing any of the patient's sleep.

Apart from the high walls and extra security, Hazelwood reminded Spencer strongly of Bennington. It made him faintly uncomfortable. He wondered what his mom was doing in Nevada while he hunted down a Satan-crazed cannibal. He hoped she was having a far less unpleasant day.

They were ushered into the office of a custodian who was bordering on the elderly. Doctor Nash had very kindly agreed to stay later than usual to meet them; the custodians lived on site, but on another block. It seemed to Spencer that he was holding something back, nonetheless. He frowned. They didn't have time for this.

"As I told Agent Jareau on the phone, we've no existing record of that patient you described," he said, offering them seats.

"But your records only go back as far as 1998," Hotch reminded him. "We were hoping that perhaps you would remember him."

"I'm sorry, I don't," he said and Spencer believed him. This man came in daily contact with the worst kinds of crazy, he knew what could be at stake. "Jim Lorenz was in charge of the adolescents."

"Adolescents?" Spencer asked, taking the proffered seat.

"The only reason we release a patient this disturbed is if he had been admitted as a minor and turned eighteen," Doctor Nash explained.

"Could we speak to Doctor Lorenz?" Hotch asked.

The custodian sighed.

"He died in the fire," he said, sadly. Spencer watched him closely; this man must have been a friend. "He was leavin' when he heard the alarm. He came back inside and became trapped."

Spencer looked up at Hotch, puzzled.

"Why would he come back?" the senior agent asked.

"He was a very dedicated man," said Nash.

There is was, thought Spencer, that tiny flicker of something withheld. Was he ashamed? Guilty that a patient this dangerous had been allowed to walk free on his watch?

"Could it be because there was something in his office that he felt was worth risking his life for?" he asked, shrewdly.

The custodian sighed again, and they knew they had him. His partial deception was only half-hearted at best.

"Doctor Nash?" Hotch invited.

"There's somethin'," he began, almost ominously.

The old man reached into the bottom drawer of his desk where he must have been keeping it for years, ready for the day when his friend's sacrifice could be made to mean something. Just in case.

"The grounds people found it in a tree just below his office," he said, heavily. "Jim must've thrown it out his window just before he…"

He couldn't finish the sentence. He handed the slim, leather-bound journal to Spencer, who took it from him gingerly. It still smelled faintly of charring.

"I started reading it," said Doctor Nash, horror creeping into his voice. "I had to stop."

 _So that was why you were holding back._

Spencer opened the volume. Plain simple horror was a powerful thing, even for people who dealt with it as part of their profession – more so, sometimes, when a person's concept of the capacity of humankind for evil far exceeds their expectations.

He scan read the first few lines and felt his face twist in disgust. It must have cost Nash a lot to keep this thing within easy reach every day since his friend died.

"The – uh – patient's symptoms go far beyond the normal psychosexual oral-biting fixation of a seven year old boy," he read aloud.

He bit his lip, reading quickly, even for him. The handwriting was neat, for a doctor, but it still took longer.

"Rossi, we've got something," said Hotch, already on his cell.

"I need a name, Reid."

Spencer flicked forward through the harrowing pages.

"Admitted after biting a large chunk out of his nine month old sister," he quoted – further confirmation, if such was needed, that they were onto the right guy.

"A name," said Hotch again, but Spencer couldn't stop his eye being drawn on, further down the page.

"'Believes he is possessed by a flesh eating demon.'"

"Reid," Hotch prodded urgently.

He tore through the next page, looking for any identification, anything that might help them get the last two victims back.

Finally, he found it, "Floyd Feylin Ferell."

0o0

"Feylin?" Dective Jordan repeated, apparently floored. "Floyd Feylin?"

"You know him?" Rossi asked.

"Sure I do."

 _One of those guys who seems so normal that it hits everyone for six when they find out he's cutting up women in the cellar,_ thought Grace, watching the man's face.

"He dropped his last name," Emily observed, already moving.

"Would he be that obvious?" Detective Jordan asked, surprised.

"Absolutely," said Rossi. "He's not that bright. He believes Satan would protect him from getting caught."

"Hidden in plain sight," Grace muttered, as they moved out.

0o0o0o0

The take down had been smooth; too smooth, perhaps. Or maybe just smooth enough for an UnSub who believed that the devil had his back. He'd been holed up beside a makeshift altar in the small part of his basement that wasn't a walk-in freezer for dead women, or a cage for the live ones, listening to a pleasant 1930s jazz tune that Grace had mentally crossed off her internal playlist.

She got the impression Feylin had spent a lot of time down there, staring at the paintings of Greek Gods devouring their children, slumped in his chair. Grace had stood with Rossi for a while, reading the words of the black mass, sloppily painted on the walls of his cell in blood red paint.

 _The life of a contemplative, indeed._

Later, they'd all milled around upstairs, waiting for forensics to move in, trying not to look too closely at the mincer and stew pots in the kitchen. There was no magic there, Grace had decided. Just evil.

Back in the station, with no sign of Tracey Lambert, the team watched Feylin's interview closely. While there was the slightest chance that Tracey was still alive they wouldn't – couldn't – let this go.

"Francisco Goya," said Reid, studying one of the more graphic paintings from that grim basement. "Known as the _Black Paintings_. Lorenz's notes say that Feylin was exposed to them as part of his therapeutic art therapy."

"I don't think it worked," Emily remarked; Grace had to agree.

"He kills them after seventy-two hours," said Hotch. "Tracey's been gone for twenty-four. See if you can find out where she is."

He handed Morgan the folder of recipes Rossi had liberated from Feylin's cellar. Grace shuddered.

"I'll do what I can."

0o0

Grace wasn't known for prescience, but there was just something in the air when Feylin asked to speak to Father Marks. It had been there, too, when he'd pointed out that Morgan's watch had stopped.

There was nothing supernatural about that, or she felt sure she would have felt it. It had rattled Morgan, though, and Feylin had seen it.

Power.

Power and an overwhelming sexual urge to break a major human taboo.

"He's up to something," she muttered, watching him through the glass. "The only reason to drag the priest in here is to humiliate him – and by extension, God."

 _This is only going to end one way: badly._

"We have to take that chance," said Hotch, softly, all his attention focussed on the three men in the interview room.

He always looked vaguely predatory at times like this, Grace felt.

Rossi, who had been flicking through the sign-in sheet, looked up, worried.

"This is strange," he said. "When he entered the park, Feylin signed the volunteer sign-in sheet, but his name's not on the list of searchers."

"There were other volunteers that day," Grace remembered, thinking back. "People directing traffic, handing out water…"

 _Oh. Oh no…_

A wave of nausea washed over her and she sat down heavily on the chair behind her. Too horrified to speak, she simply stared through the one-way glass and watched the sickening truth unfold.

"Something's wrong," said Rossi, but Grace barely heard him.

Her mind was far away, recoiling from how inviting that chilli had smelled on the day of the search.

" _You're not alone, my son,"_ came Father Marks' voice, over the intercom. _"God is in all of us."_

"We need to stop the interview," said Rossi, urgently, but it was already too late.

" _So is Tracey Lambert."_

The effect of the statement was delayed for a few seconds while everyone's minds caught up with Rossi and Grace. Through the glass, Floyd Feylin Farrell began to laugh – a horrible self-satisfied cackle that would have been offensive even if they hadn't known why.

"Oh God," Spencer breathed, dropping the evidence bag he had been holding.

"He was feeding the volunteers," Detective Jordan realised.

" _Son of a bitch,"_ said Father Marks, and launched himself over the table at Feylin. Anyone who wasn't about to be violently ill went to stop the priest from acting on his utterly justifiable rage. Grace stared at the cannibal as the fight was broken up and a good man begged to be allowed to kill him.

He wouldn't stop smiling.

"That was what he wanted," she said, feeling hollow. "To destroy a man devoted to his master's enemy."

And share the blame of consuming human flesh with an entire community – and the truckload of Staties that had turned up towards the end of the day.

"Oh _God_ ," Reid said again.

Emily, who was a good deal paler than usual, flew from the room, JJ hot on her heels. Grace swallowed, guessing that they'd eaten the chilli. Just outside the door, Detective Jordan was being sick in a bin.

For a moment she met Reid's eyes, aware that the horror she saw on his face was reflected on her own. She looked away, profoundly glad that on that day of all days she had skipped lunch.

0o0

 _God sends meat, and the devil sends cooks._

Sixteenth century English novelist, Thomas Delaney

0o0

Hotch had pretty much locked himself in the bathroom on the jet after take-off. Apparently his self-control had kept him going for hours before the thought of what he, Emily and JJ had eaten the day before had fully hit him. Everyone else was either feigning sleep or counting their blessings that they hadn't partaken.

Grace gazed out of the sunset, glad to be leaving Florida and Floyd Feylin Farrell behind and contemplating a largely vegetarian future.

"Blaming the devil for his cannibalism wasn't enough to lessen his guilt, so he tricked others into participating," Rossi remarked.

Grace watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was talking to Morgan, helping him to make sense of the case. It wasn't the way that Gideon had done things, but that didn't matter. They were finding a new path to follow, between them.

Rossi glanced over at JJ, who was still pale and pretending to be asleep so she didn't need to talk to anybody.

"He made them all as guilty as he was."

"He caught every break possible, Rossi," said Morgan. This had obviously been on his mind. "Gets released from the hospital, his records get destroyed, gets pulled over with a victim in the trunk of his car and they let him go."

He shook his head; Grace could practically feel his faith in the known world wavering.

"I've never seen someone that lucky."

"What's your point?" Rossi asked.

Morgan paused and then said, "You've been doing this a long time. You've seen a lot of things. You think it's possible that Feylin would… I don't know, that he was gettin' some kinda help from somethin' else?"

"It's irrelevant," said Rossi, pragmatically. "The job is to find evil, to stop it – not to know where it came from. Let somebody else take that job. This one's tough enough."

"You got that right," Grace murmured.

She wedged herself against the window of the jet, turning as far away from Rossi and Morgan as she could, and dreamed of the past, where getting help from 'something else' was a routine enquiry.

0o0o0o0

She'd cleaned out the fridge freezer before she'd even unpacked her go-bag and taken every meat product straight to the nearest homeless shelter.

Back in her house, Grace lay fully clothed, flat on her newly delivered bed, staring up at her dark ceiling. It would be a few weeks yet before the rest of her stuff would be delivered, and among them her reference texts and phantasmagoria. She'd need them, if they ran into a few more UnSubs like this one.

She twisted in the bed to see the time. It was getting on for eleven and she knew she ought to sleep, but she wasn't tired. She felt oddly wired, like she was standing on a precipice, waiting for the drop.

She played with her mobile, turning it over and over in her hands, worrying at the chip on the side which she'd knocked out when she'd made unpleasantly high-speed contact with a fire door a few weeks previously. When it started to ring, she nearly dropped it in surprise.

 _Hotch._

Hotch never called.

Grace frowned at the name and picked up.

Then she ran out of the house, slamming the door behind her, not stopping until the traffic on the main road made her pause for breath and safety. She rocked up and down on the balls of her feet, panicked, willing the traffic to part.

This could not be happening.

 _It could not be happening._

She had to get to Reid's apartment.

He wasn't answering his phone and they needed him to answer his phone. He needed to be told.

Lungs bursting, she sprinted the last four streets to his apartment, cutting what was usually a twenty minute walk down to a seven minute sprint, her hair streaming out behind her like a tangled sheet of gold. She took the stairs three at a time. It took a few minutes for him to answer the door and she was pounding on it loud enough to earn a livid glare from his next door neighbour.

"I'm sorry!" she hissed, still out of breath. "Emergency!"

The neighbour's scowl retreated just as Reid opened his door.

He stared at her, dishevelled and panting, and for a moment she stared at him, too. Clearly, he'd been in the shower when Hotch had called and was now only wearing a towel and a look of utter confusion. He was still damp.

Mind momentarily derailed, she opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. Reid began to blush. Feeling ridiculous and ignoring the answering colour rising in her own cheeks, Grace took a moment to rearrange her brain.

Spencer found his voice first: "Grace, what –"

"It's Penelope," she blurted out. "It's Penelope."


	5. Penelope

Essential listening: Helpless, D Generation

0o0

Reid's expression slid from confused to really concerned.

"She's been shot," Grace told him hurriedly. "They're taking her to the hospital."

"Oh my God!" he exclaimed, backing into his apartment. Grace followed him, pulling the door to behind her. "What happened?"

"Don't know – Hotch didn't say much. He and JJ are heading out there now," she said, distracted. Now she had achieved her primary goal – find Spencer and let him know the worst kind of news – her head didn't seem to be providing information in the right order. "It was right outside her apartment. Chest wound."

Her voice caught a little on the last few syllables and she cleared her throat. Reid threw her a wide-eyed look and hurried to his bedroom to dress. Grace could hear him moving around in there, throwing on clothes.

"They're taking her to a hospital, right? That's good," he called through, voice a little muffled. "That means she's not – that means she's still –"

"Still breathing," Grace finished, quietly.

There was a pause, a moment of stillness that suggested he'd heard her. When he spoke again, Spencer's voice was stronger; that mask of business-like, law enforcement self-control was in place, though he was patently bad at it.

"Is my sweater through there?" he asked.

Grace cast about, glad to be given something to do, however trivial. She could barely keep still.

 _Penelope is going to be fine,_ she told herself sternly.

"Cardigan?" she asked, finding it amongst the books and cushions on the sofa.

"That'll do," he said, hopping out of his bedroom, still pulling one of his shoes on. At any other time, on any other day, Grace would have found the sight of him hilarious. He didn't bother with the laces and caught the cardigan easily when Grace flung it in his direction. That part of her brain which functioned even when other, more important things were happening noted he was much less clumsy when he wasn't thinking.

The drive to the hospital was tense and silent, each agent lost in their own, troubled thoughts, each frustrated at the distance they still had to travel and fearful for their friend. Reid had floored it even before Grace had got her seatbelt on and, if she'd been paying attention, she would have been astonished at the traffic laws her friend was breaking. As it was, she was too caught up in her own fears to notice.

This kind of thing only happened in movies, not to nice crazy people like Penelope Garcia. Staunchly ignoring that part of her mind which was bent on reminding her that the majority of the victims the team encountered as part of their work were nice people too, Grace vowed that whoever had done this to her friend would meet an unpleasant death.

 _If she died…_

It was unthinkable. Garcia was too vital, too much the essence of life to die like this. It was insane. There was a definite chance that the loss of someone as awesome as Garcia would seriously upset the karmic balance of the universe. It would herald the beginning of the apocalypse, if Penelope Garcia died.

 _If she died…_

She set her jaw. If Garcia died and Grace ever found out that there _were_ gods after all, she would march right up to their coveted temples and slaughter them herself just for letting it happen.

She hadn't been this afraid for a long time. The quality of fear was different to being afraid during a case, where you fought for victims in as detached a way as possible (which wasn't all that detached at all), and different again than being concerned for your own skin in the hot, indifferent chaos of a take-down.

 _This_ fear was sharp and cold, and very urgent. Grace had pushed such emotions as deep as she cold for more than a year. Now her mind felt thready, incapable. Her thoughts were flying about all over the place. It was like a living thing, fear for a loved one who she couldn't help. It was like a dream; the memory of fear.

Wordlessly, she bit the ends of her fingers as Reid's ancient Volvo sped through the dark streets.

 _Garcia will be alright._

She said it over and over in her head, like the words of a spell. She knew from bitter experience that it was the kind of spell that never worked, no matter how much you wanted it to.

Spencer glanced at her as they all but ran a red light. Not speaking, bother agents pursed their lips together and prayed to a god neither one believed in, willing their friend to stay alive.

They sprinted up the steps into the ER and raced through the wards until Reid spotted Hotch and JJ in a small oasis of 'comfortable' seating and grabbed Grace's arm, changing direction on a dime. They could tell from their colleagues' faces that this was bad. Hotch was pacing, which was never a good sign. He had never done it before Gideon had left, but had inherited it as surely as if the departing agent had left the habit for him in a box on his desk.

JJ sprang to her feet when she saw them.

"She's in surgery," she told them, unable to keep the anxiety out of her voice. "There's no word."

"This is crazy," said Reid, swallowing hard.

Grace shared a speaking look with Hotch as he passed by, carried by the slow arc of his pacing.

This was insane. Ludicrous.

They looked up as Prentiss arrived and then Rossi, the tension easing marginally with each new addition as for a minute at least there was something else to concentrate on besides the gnawing sensation that they might never see their precious friend again, nor hear her snappy retort at the other end of the phone.

"What do we know?" Rossi asked, joining the knot of fearful agents in the centre of the waiting room.

"Police think it was a botched robbery," said Hotch.

The team looked at one another, despairing. This wasn't supposed to happen. _They_ were the ones who were supposed to be putting themselves in danger, not Penelope. She was supposed to be safely ensconced in her tech cave, not getting shot in front of her apartment by some random hoodlum looking to score her purse. It was as if the world had up and decided that it no longer had to make any sense. Grace wouldn't have been surprised if the gravity had stopped working; the laws of nature were no longer predictable.

"Where's Morgan?" Emily asked, looking around.

Of all the members of the tram, he ought to be here. Penelope needed him to be here.

"He's not answering his cell," said JJ, frowning deeply.

"I'll call him again," said Reid, hurrying off.

Rossi immediately drew Hotch to one side and started speaking in hushed tones. One look at their faces told her that what Hotch wasn't saying to the group was something they didn't want to know.

JJ detached from the group and went to politely harass the nurses at a nearby station. Grace wrapped her arms around herself, gripping her father's pocket watch in her palm. It was cool and reassuring, a familiar weight in her hand, the slight bump of the hinge digging into the base of her thumb.

It would be all too easy to let herself panic. She tapped her foot up and down on the floor, willing her anxiety and frustration to be content with only this. She was no good at waiting at the best of times, but this was agony.

"They can't give me an update," JJ announced, striding back.

Reid followed her, as though he had been caught in the eddy of her movement.

"Morgan's phone just keeps going to voicemail," he said, looking pained.

"Where the hell is he?" Emily demanded.

"He'll come," said Grace. "He'll pick up the voicemail and he'll get here."

They settled in to wait, each in their own personal bubble of concentrated anxiety. Hotch resumed his patrol of the tiny waiting room, a long, slow stride that kept him moving without putting anyone in danger of being barrelled over. He crossed his arms, keeping himself contained.

JJ was perched on the very edge of her seat, her chin in her hand. She was staring hard into the middle distance, desperate for news of any kind, numb with shock. Emily sat beside her, and after a long look at her friend, she took her hand. Emily's face, too, was pinched. She chewed the nails of her other hand, grinding her teeth.

Rossi was fiddling with something bright and shiny he'd extracted from his pocket. Grace couldn't decide if it was an act of prayer or a reminder of someone else he had been unable to save from harm. Spencer folded himself into a chair, chewing hard at the inside of his cheeks. Grace remained on her feet, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, turning the comforting weight of her father's pocket watch over and over in her hands.

None of them spoke; what could they say that hadn't already been said? It was enough that all of them were there, save Derek (wherever he was) – and yet it couldn't be enough, not until they knew she was safely out of surgery. For the moment, their presence and Morgan's lack of cell connectivity had left them with nothing to do, and none of them were truly patient people, even on a good day, when one of their friends wasn't slipping away on the table, two rooms away.

Grace started pacing too, crosswise from her unit chief.

She had never liked hospitals. There was always too much noise for her – on several planes of consciousness – and she could never tell whether the people she passed in the corridor were alive, dead, or somewhere between the two. It put her on edge.

Her stomach clenched.

As one, they all looked up, startled by the jarring screech of an alarm at the far end of the corridor. Suddenly the hallway was full of medical staff, all running to one of the private rooms.

Giddy relief filled Grace and was quickly replaced by shame at the joy she'd felt upon realising that the person flat-lining in the distance wasn't her friend. She frowned, creasing her forehead deeply, and resumed her short circuit of the chairs, disgusted with herself. She passed Hotch in his respective orbit; somehow, without conscious thought, they had managed to organise their steps so that they never collided, though neither was technically paying attention to where they were going.

The man who had all but coded was rushed past them on a trolley, personnel shouting at one another over the urgent noises of the machines. Grace closed her eyes.

It was different when it was one of your own. It felt too much like the last time: the smells, the sounds, the clinical tension. The horrible whirring of the machines and the daunting, foreboding pressure of the place, as though the very air was inhabited with the potential for life or death.

Her hand moved to her abdomen as the flood of memory enveloped her, her internal gyroscope cycling back towards nausea.

A sudden pressure at the crook of her arm brought her back to the present. In her mindless perambulation she had come to a halt beside Spencer, who was frowning up at her as if he had guessed that her current agitation was probably about more than just Garcia's condition. The pressure of his hand increased slightly and she let him pull her gently towards the seat beside him, where she leant her arms on her knees, worriedly chewing the ends of her fingers.

She couldn't lose it now, there were too many people here.

The weight of Reid's body settled against her side – close enough for her to feel his presence, but far enough away for her to pull back if she wanted to: an invitation. Grace swallowed and leaned into him. Right now, she needed an anchor, in whatever form it took.

Spencer's arm looped through hers and snaked around it, the palm of his hand closing around her wrist, steadying her. She supposed he could feel how fast her pulse was racing; her fingers clasped his tightly. He rubbed a thumb over the back of her hand.

Grace checked the time on her pocket watch for something to do: 11.33 p.m. It seemed like hardly any time at all since Hotch had called – and yet, if she thought about it, it also seemed like they had lived centuries in those forty minutes.

She held her father's watch tightly in one hand and Spencer's hand in her other, feeling dizzy and lost.

 _Come on,_ she thought. _Come on Supergirl. Come on._

0o0

William Shakespeare wrote: _Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none._

0o0

JJ and Emily leapt to their feet when Morgan strode in, looking anguished.

"She's been in surgery a couple hours," said JJ.

Their panic had matured from the waiting to a dull, quiet throb, but Morgan's was still fresh and unforgiving.

"I was in church, my phone was off," he told them, looking wretched.

"There's nothing you could've been doing here," said Reid, still tethering Grace to the living world.

"The police got any leads?" Morgan asked.

"I spoke to the lead detective, he doesn't think we'll get anything from the scene," said Hotch.

A door opened across from them, admitting a tired looking surgeon, and suddenly everybody was on their feet. He walked towards them slowly, reading from a medical chart. Grace couldn't tell whether it was good news or bad from his face, he simply looked exhausted. She held her breath.

"Penelope Garcia?" he asked, looking up at them.

"Yes," said Hotch, only a moment before Emily.

He nodded and closed his chart. Grace stood stock still among her co-workers, afraid to move in case that somehow affected the outcome.

"The bullet went in her chest and ricocheted into her abdomen," he told them, voice level. "She lost a lot of blood." Grace felt her heart constrict painfully until he continued, "It was touch and go for a while, but we were able to repair the injuries."

Hope, a thing they had hitherto denied themselves, began to grow in the assembled agents, so strongly that it hovered in the air, palpable.

"What are you saying?" JJ asked, urgently.

"One centimetre over and it would've torn right through her heart, but instead she could actually walk out of here in a couple of days," he clarified, and suddenly they could breathe again. "I'd say that's a minor miracle."

"That's our girl," said Grace, lightly, as seven sets of taut muscles relaxed. Beside her, she felt Reid sag in relief.

"She needs a rest," said the surgeon. "You can see her in the morning."

"Thank you," they chorused, as he walked away.

Grace felt like hugging someone, but there wasn't time. Now that they knew their analyst was out of the woods, there was only one thing on anyone's minds: getting the bastard who had put her there. Instinctively, they all turned to Hotch.

"Dave and I'll go to the scene," he announced. "I think the rest of you should be here when she wakes up."

There were a series of fervent nods. Wild horses wouldn't keep them away.

"I don't care about protocol, I don't care whether we're working this officially or not, we don't touch any new cases until we find out who did this."

 _And heaven help them when we do_ , thought Grace.

It wasn't until Reid let go of her hand in search of a coffee machine that she realised he'd still been holding it.


	6. Decompression Period

Essential Listening: Lost & Found, Rocket to the Moon

0o0

Although the urge to stay as close to Garcia as they could was strong, the nurses in the ER eventually chased them out at two a.m., making room for new arrivals. It had taken some doing, but they were persuaded that Garcia wouldn't wake up for hours yet and the doctor in charge of the ward had promised to let them in again at six o'clock, long before she was expected to stir. Since they had been assured that someone would call if there was any change the weary members of the BAU had agreed, knowing that other people needed the space and that their wonderfully mad friend was safe enough for now.

Beginning to feel some of the exhaustion of the last few days the remaining five agents trudged out into the dark hospital grounds and dispersed. Grace closed her eyes and sucked in a great gulp of clean, non-disinfected air. It was good to be outside again – and good to be cold. For the first time in hours, she felt alive again.

She felt a gentle touch at the back of her elbow and turned to find Reid watching her. He gave her a tired, slightly wired smile.

"Want a ride back?"

She nodded and followed him back to the car. Together, they got in, made themselves comfortable, buckled up and then – stopped.

Reid let his hands fall from the wheel to his lap, dropping his head back against the head rest. He exhaled, sounding like he was letting out a great tide of pent up tension. His eyes were on the roof, though Grace suspected he wasn't really seeing it.

She nodded, slowly, understanding. She watched the small number of patients and visitors moving around the hospital carpark like insomniac shadows. Grace leaned her head against the cool window glass, too tired and relieved even to move.

They stayed like that for some time, relieved to exist for a short while where there was no emergency, no danger, no threat to their made little family.

 _Funny how being in a state of emergency could so quickly become 'normal',_ Grace reflected.

"Do you want to go home?" Reid asked, eventually, still gazing at the ceiling of his car.

"No," said Grace, after a moment. She didn't want to be on her own tonight, and there was little chance of sleeping now.

Absently, her palm rested against her abdomen. She sighed, feeling battered and hollow.

"No, me either," he echoed, and switched on the ignition.

They drove for a while in silence, much less fraught than their outward journey. Grace watched the buildings slide by in the bleached neon light, thinking of _him_.

Reid's voice brought her back to herself; she hadn't even realised the car had stopped.

"Are you hungry?" he asked again, nodding at her stomach.

She snatched her hand away as soon as she caught sight of it, annoyed at herself. She hadn't slipped like that in a long time.

"Where are we?" she asked instead, choosing to focus on their surroundings rather than his expression. She wasn't sure she could bear to have that conversation – not today – and she hoped he wasn't going to press her.

They appeared to be parked behind a dive bar – it was hard to tell from this angle. There was an expanse of brickwork, papered with posters and adverts. She frowned. It didn't seem like his kind of place at all.

When he didn't respond she glanced back at him; he was watching her carefully, a slight frown on his face.

 _Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask. Please Spencer,_ she prayed, _don't ask. Not now, not today!_

Reid opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of it. He got out of the car instead.

What she had thought was a dive bar turned out to be an all-night 1950s diner, like that painting by Edward Hopper. She couldn't help but laugh – it was so very _Reid_. Her laughter seemed to relax him slightly, and he opened the door for her, which made her laugh again. To her surprise, she felt his hand on her back, gently guiding her to a booth towards the back of the diner with a good view, both inside and out.

It put her on guard a little.

Generally speaking, Spencer Reid was not what you might describe as a physical being. The fact that he was making himself touch her probably meant that he was really worried about her – or so worried about Garcia that he had forgotten that he didn't like to be touched.

She studied him for a moment; he looked more comfortable here than he did almost anywhere else, like he had stepped out of time. Not for the first time, Grace wondered whether he'd actually been born in the wrong decade.

The suspicion that he had been here before was confirmed when the waitress – a pleasantly matronly woman – sauntered over and greeted Reid like a regular.

"Hey Spencer, who's your friend?" she asked, giving Grace a look that made her feel like a sixteen year old meeting her boyfriend's mother for the first time.

She brushed the thought aside as Reid introduced her, no hint of embarrassment in him.

"Uh – hi Dolores. This is my colleague at the BAU, Grace Pearce."

"Ma'am," she said, tiredly.

"What's the occasion," Dolores asked. "Finally on a date, huh?"

 _That_ made Reid sputter, which was pretty bloody comic, especially at 3 a.m. after a day with a serial cannibal and a night fretting in a hospital, and Grace started laughing again. She could tell it was bordering on the hysterical from his expression.

"Uh, no – we're just friends," he said, and Grace calmed down a bit.

"Sorry," she croaked, aware that anyone else might see her laughter as rude.

"Actually, we've just come from the hospital," he said, which wiped the fragile smile off her face.

She stared at her hands as he explained that their friend had been shot. Mirth felt wrong, here and now, while Garcia was still unconscious. Dolores hurried away, promising hot drinks and food ("Not meat!" they'd declared in unison) in honour of Garcia's will to survive.

Reid attempted to hide his face behind one of his hands, still quite embarrassed. She patted his other hand and he let out a worried chuckle.

"I come here when I can't sleep," he explained, after an awkward silence.

Grace nodded. They lapsed back into silence as Dolores clattered around the kitchen. Grace wished she could think of something to say, but she couldn't. It was as if her mind had decided that enough was enough, today. She was aware that her friend was watching her again, and she warily met his worried brown eyes.

"Grace," Reid began, quietly. "Are you okay?"

His voice and face were full of concern and she thought that in a different world it might be perfectly possible for a girl to fall in love with this man and the care he took of the people close to him.

This, however, was not that world.

"Sure," she lied. "Penelope's going to be fine, we're going to take this bastard down. I'm fine."

His eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't believe her for a second; she watched as they dropped to roughly where her stomach was obscured by the table.

She was saved from further comment by the arrival of Dolores, who produced hot, sweet coffee, hot, sweet tea (hallelujah!) and an entire cherry pie. Grace applied herself to her first slice with gusto, realising that actually, she was starving.

"How long have you known Garcia?" she asked, as she ate.

As an attempt to steer the conversation it was clumsy, but he let it go. Perhaps he was just too tired and too relieved to bother with it right now.

"Four years," he told her, between bites of pie. "She joined the team about six months after me." He was quiet for a moment; his face changed and suddenly he looked far older than twenty-six. "It's like there wasn't a time before she was part of the BAU."

"She'll be back before we know it," Grace told him, guessing the direction of his thoughts.

"Yeah…"

"I know what you mean," Grace said. "I've been here less than a year and I can't imagine the BAU without her. She's got such a big personality."

He nodded, slowly.

"I don't know what we'd do if…" he trailed off, stricken.

"She's like karma, balancing out all the crap we see every day." She sighed. "It feels so wrong, doesn't it? That it was her instead of one of us."

Reid's eyes widened slightly and she knew she had hit the nail on the head.

"She's supposed to be safe in Quantico," he said. "But instead she's gunned down on the street, like she doesn't matter. Like the world wouldn't come crashing down without her."

His voice trembled a little as he spoke, so Grace reached over the table and squeezed his hand. A dark look crossed his features for a moment.

"When we get our hands on that son of a…"

Her grip on his hand tightened and that dark, unfamiliar expression evaporated. She was about to pull away when he caught her hand in his; she sensed that now, once the immediate danger had passed, it was Spencer who needed an anchor, whether he normally liked to be touched or not.

"It's been a long, stupid-ass day," she told him, softly.

He nodded, studying her closely for a moment, then frowned.

"I'm fine," she said again, before he had the chance to ask. "It's just been a bit much, you know? What with cannibals and demons, and having one of my best friends get shot –" she let a smirk cross her face. "And seeing another mostly naked."

He smiled, almost involuntarily.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," he offered, meeting her eyes. There was a slight flush to his cheeks that was altogether unfamiliar.

It was so out of character that Grace was momentarily floored. They had never talked about that night in New Orleans before, and she had thought they never would. Then he laughed, awkwardly, and was the same old Reid again. She frowned and put it down to exhaustion.

There was another lengthy pause. The last few months had been hectic, even by BAU standards. It felt like a very long time since she had properly looked at her friend: the deep exhaustion that had been a part of his every motion when they had first met had gone, to be replaced by the nervous energy that seemed to define him. He was – as he always had been – incredibly brave, and incredibly caring.

He seemed to be studying her just as earnestly, so when he spoke she was already half prepared.

"You – uh – you know… you don't have to lie to me," he said, and gave a small, nervous laugh, like he had when he was interrogating Jeremy Jacobs a few weeks before. "You can talk to me. I know about –" he lowered his voice "– your less – uh – official skills."

Grace forced her face to remain impassive. _Some of them_ , she thought, warily.

"You – you can't scare me off, Grace. Since I met you, you've been there for me – and you didn't ask questions, even though you probably should have…" he moistened his lips, stroking the back of her hand. She glanced at it for a moment; she didn't think he even know that he was doing it. "You can tell me you're not okay and I – I promise I won't try to find out why, or try to fix you."

"Liar," she said, softly, when she had recovered her voice.

A flicker of something undefinable crossed his features and the grip on her hand tightened, as if he was afraid she would withdraw it. He began to look a little hurt.

"I'm not –"

Grace scoffed.

"You wouldn't be BAU if you could resist a puzzle," she said, not unkindly. "I'm okay –" she raised her other hand when he tried to argue. "I'm okay enough, and that's all any of us get."

"Grace…"

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly, but he caught the movement and sighed.

"Fine," he said eventually, though she suspected that this would not be the last she heard of it.

Abruptly, he pulled his hand away and she felt suddenly bereft. Worried that she had offended him, she leaned forward.

"Spencer," she began, but he interrupted.

"Do you want more pie?" he asked, no longer meeting her eyes. He gave her a brittle smile when she didn't respond. "Look, I get it," he said, though she wasn't sure if he was reassuring her or himself. "I get it. Do you want more?"

They abandoned their plates, picking fruit and pastry from the pie dish and talking – haltingly at first – about their friend. It was understood that there would be no more candour tonight: at least, none that wasn't about Garcia, so instead they talked about all the things they loved about her. In the peace and quiet of the diner, an oasis of light in the early hours of a Washington dawn, it was easy to pretend that they were both okay and that Garcia was tucked up at home rather than lying unconscious in a recovery ward.

It occurred to Grace, when she seemed to have been forgiven and they got up to settle the bill a few hours later, and Reid's hand had reappeared on the small of her back – had it been anyone else she would have hit them – that perhaps it wasn't that Reid wasn't a physical being at all. He just wasn't a physical being with anyone other than her.

0o0o0o0

It was still just after five, but the dawn came fast at this time of the year and the courtyard was bathed in sunlight by the time they finally let Hotch and Rossi onto the scene. He eyed Garcia's blood, feeling old and helpless. That was two team members who'd got shot on his watch in the last two years. He'd be damned if he let Garcia go the same way as Elle.

"Our guess is he saw here enter and then kicked the door in after her," said the detective, running the scene. "He robs her, she tries to chase him, then he turns and shoots as he's getting away."

Hotch frowned slightly. There were several problems with that theory, but the evidence so far supported it – it was just that the behaviour that was wrong. Forced.

"You have an estimate on how far away the gunshot was?" he asked. "Approximately fifteen feet."

"Any reason besides the door that you think this was a robbery?" Dave asked, clearly thinking along the same lines.

"He took her purse and dumped half of it before he took off."

"Did you find the shell casing?" Dave enquired; the detective shook his head.

Aaron walked to the ornamental tree at the centre of the courtyard, approximately fifteen feet from where the blood of his technical analyst stained the white stone steps.

"So he hit her square from here," he said, assuming a shooting position.

"Hell of a shot on the run," Dave observed.

"Why does he risk coming into an enclosed courtyard," Aaron asked, "just to steal a purse?"

He looked around the courtyard of the former Stanford Arms, the old coaching inn that Garcia called home. There were overlooking windows on three sides; it just didn't make sense.

 _He would have to be incredibly stupid, or incredibly high,_ he thought.

"The world's boldest purse snatcher," Dave suggested. "It doesn't make sense."

0o0o0o0

They'd met back at the ER just after five o'clock, none of them even trying to pretend that they had slept. All of them were wearing the same clothes. They were tense and quiet now; none of them would be totally easy until they saw her in person. One of the nurses came to collect them when Garcia woke up earlier than expected.

"That's a good sign, right?" Emily asked, as they hurried inside.

Grace craned to see past Morgan and JJ, who were practically racing ahead. She let them. No one was closer to Penelope than they were.

"Oh," someone said, weakly, and Grace realised it was Penelope.

She swallowed, hard.

JJ kissed Penelope's cheek as they crowded around her bed. Grace patted the end of the bed, needing to feel that her living, breathing friend wasn't an illusion.

"Hey, no tears," Garcia croaked, looking around at them all. "I'm afraid if I start crying I'll come unstapled."

"How're you feelin'?" Morgan asked her gently.

"Confused. Stupid – and – in pain," Garcia managed.

For the third time that night, Grace reached for Reid's hand, feeling that if she didn't she would try to hug Penelope and that would only hurt her. Warm fingers closed around hers as if he'd sensed her need without looking.

On the bed, Penelope sighed.

"I never saw it coming. He seemed… deliciously normal."

Grace frowned.

"You know him?" Reid asked, voicing her thoughts.

Garcia turned slightly to Derek, her voice heavy, "You were right," she told him. "I shouldn't have trusted it."

"What're you talkin' about?"

"That guy I told you about – the one I met at the coffee shop."

Grace felt her face twist in horror.

 _The one I encouraged you to go out with._

"I wanted to believe he was interested in me," Garcia continued.

"Forget that."

"I let my guard down."

"Do you have any idea why he would have done this?" Emily asked.

"Did he threaten you?" Reid suggested. "Did he want something?"

"I just thought he liked me," said Garcia, starting to cry.

Guilt twisted in Grace's gut.

"It's okay," she said. "It's going to be okay."

"Okay, um, we're gonna – we're gonna come back later," said JJ, seeing how much distress her friend was in.

She looked so small and weak in her hospital bed – none of them wanted to make things worse.

"We need a name," said Emily apologetically.

She was right. They couldn't do a thing until Garcia told them that.

"James Colby Baylor," said Garcia, after a moment.

They retreated, moving just far enough away that Garcia could call them back if she needed them.

"JJ," Garcia croaked desperately. "Can you stay for a sec'?"

Emily disappeared to call Hotch; Grace followed the boys. Morgan had been holding it together pretty well up to now, but that fell apart as soon as they were out of Garcia's eyeline. He punched the wall, partially erasing a patient's name from the whiteboard hanging on it

"You need to stay calm," said Reid gently.

" _Don't_ tell me what to be," Morgan retorted, fairly shaking with anger.

Reid flinched. Morgan never snapped at him. Given the circumstances, Grace suspected he wouldn't take it personally.

"Hey," she said softly. "Not helping."

Morgan glared at her for a moment before his shoulders slumped and he nodded. It had been a hard day all round.

"You remember anything she said about him?" Reid asked.

"No," said Morgan, still agitated.

"I just talked to Hotch," said Emily, coming back. "They think he used a revolver."

"Who the hell uses a revolver?" Morgan asked.

"Traditionalist? History buff?" Grace suggested, and then looked pointedly at Reid. "FBI agent?"

Reid rolled his eyes.

"Someone who doesn't want to leave shell casings behind as evidence," he proposed.

"What about witnesses?" Morgan asked.

"None so far," Emily shook her head. "And he staged it to look like a robbery,"

"That means he's smart enough to use forensic counter measures," Reid remarked. "Odds are the name he gave to Garcia's bogus." He looked up – JJ was leaving Garcia's room. "What did she say?"

"She made me promise not to talk about her like a victim," said JJ, struggling to hide her emotions.

Five weary agents turned and peered anxiously into Garcia's recovery room.

"She's not a victim," said Grace, more certain of this than she had ever been of anything. "She's one of us."


	7. Supergirl

Essential listening: Heroes, David Bowie

0o0

"So, victimology," said Aaron, as he and Rossi finally ducked under the crime scene tape. "Why Garcia?"

"Look at her," Dave exclaimed, as if that explained everything.

"What are you saying?" Aaron frowned, making his way to the driver's side of the SUV.

"I mean you don't look like that by accident," the other man said, leaning against the car. "She wears her individuality like a shield."

"Leading someone to be antagonistic?" Hotch asked, following him. It wouldn't be the first time.

"She stands out," Rossi shrugged. "A single woman – could be someone who was watchin' her for a while."

"A sadist who gets off on gaining her trust and then trying to kill her?"

"Pretty common," Dave reminded him. "Kemper, Bundy, Robert Anderson – they all had an element of it."

He looked away and sighed, and Aaron realised he was just as unhappy with the profile as he was.

"What's bugging you?" he asked.

"A sadist who just happens to choose an analyst for the FBI?"

Aaron nodded.

 _Exactly_.

Reid could probably tell them the odds, but he wouldn't have to. Some things were just too much of a coincidence.

0o0o0o0

She looked better this afternoon, Spencer thought. There was more colour in her cheeks and she was spending more time awake. They'd all gone home in shifts to change and grab breakfast, not leaving Garcia alone for a moment. There was a part of all of them that couldn't bear the thought of her needing them and their not being there – not right now.

He looked away as the nurse changed her drip and thought about how vulnerable they all were. Something as insignificant as a tiny cylinder of metal had reduced the entire team – eight of the strongest people he had ever met – to near wrecks in a matter of seconds.

He thought of the way Grace's pulse had raced as she paced the corridor the night of the shooting and the hunted, pleading look in her eyes when she'd guessed he was about to ask her why.

Grace was a conundrum at the best of times, particularly when it came to her less traditional talents, but to see his friend so obviously fragile had done something painful and complicated to his chest. He had a fairly good idea of what was bothering her from her behaviour, but she'd made it perfectly clear that this was not a subject she was able to talk about. Maybe would never be able to talk about.

It was curious, really. Though he had always had to be strong for his mother, it had been many years since she had really asked for his help. The way Grace had reached for him in Garcia's hospital room had charmed and disarmed him. It made him feel protective; up until now he had really only ever been the protectee.

As soon as they had assured themselves that Garcia was okay he had followed Grace out of sight of the others and, after she'd tried to stare him down for a few seconds, he'd taken her in his arms. She'd been cold – far too cold for someone who'd been in the temperature controlled ward for over an hour – and shaking, and that scared the hell out of him, so he'd held her tightly, going against every instinct he had about people and proximity.

When she'd finally pulled away her face and his shoulder had been wet, but Spencer didn't care. He'd nearly lost one friend already and he wasn't going to abandon another. Grace had scrubbed the tears from her face, meeting his gaze with an empty, brittle look in her unsettling, periwinkle eyes that made him want to hold her again. He'd touched her arm instead and his friend had given him the wobbliest of smiles.

Somehow, they both seemed to understand that on days like this the normal rules of friendship were suspended.

On days like this it was okay to seek comfort in touch – as long as neither of them asked too many questions, like why her hand kept hovering over her middle, or why he couldn't seem to let go of her.

Now, though, it was Morgan who was oddly fragile and exhausted. He peered into Garcia's room with something close to heartbreak in his eyes.

"I asked her to go out last night," he said quietly. "But she was pissed at me." He turned away. "I should have been there."

Spencer watched Garcia sleeping peacefully for a moment.

Why did everyone keep insisting on blaming themselves for this? There was no way any of them could have known. He frowned as the now-familiar twinge of helpless guilt squirmed within him. It was natural to feel protective and a little responsible for an injured friend – particularly when you were a member of the emergency services – but logically speaking it wasn't anybody's fault but this 'Colby' guy's. Feeling bad about it wouldn't help their friend.

He sighed.

 _Or Morgan_.

"So you ended up in church?" he asked, shooting his friend a curious look.

"Yeah," his friend said, quietly. "What does it mean?"

Spencer blinked, uncomfortable. There was a yearning in Morgan's eyes that he couldn't do anything to soothe. A crisis of faith was something he was ill equipped to help solve.

 _You're asking the wrong person,_ he thought.

"In one hand, if she'd gone out with me she woulda never got shot," Morgan continued, earnestly. "On the other hand, what're the odds that the first time I pray in twenty years, she's on the table?"

"She's asking for you," said the nurse, and Spencer couldn't help but feel relieved.

He had none of the answers his friend needed right now; he had a shrewd suspicion that whatever he said would make it worse.

Garcia's breathing was more laboured now and Reid guessed the pain med's were wearing off.

They spoke softly, as if they were in church.

"Hey," said Morgan, gently taking her hand. "How you feelin'?"

"Good news, bad news," said Garcia weakly. "The morphine's wearing off."

Both men smiled, glad to know that her sense of humour had survived intact. She turned to look up at Reid, who gazed back at her fondly.

"When I was in the ambulance," she told him, "I could hear the song _Heroes_ playing in my head. I kept flashing in and out of consciousness. Everything was really bright – and I remember thinking, 'Wait, is David Bowie really God?'"

They chuckled.

"We have a – uh," Spencer swallowed. Garcia's good humour was delicate and he didn't want to do this to her right now, but they had to start somewhere. "We have a sketch artist coming in."

He glanced at Morgan for assurance that he wasn't out of line.

"Okay," said Garcia, and he could hear the fear in his friend's voice. "Still a little hazy…"

"It's okay," Morgan soothed. "Anything you tell us will help."

0o0o0o0

Aaron Hotchner left his office at some speed, wanting to get through the briefing as quickly as possible. This case was driving them all crazy – to have it go cold when it was one of their own was unacceptable. Rossi gave him a searching look.

"You look like crap," he said, accepting the proffered file and falling into step with his friend.

"Four days, no leads. I _feel_ like crap," Aaron huffed.

"Any word from the hospital?"

"She's out of the ICU," said Aaron, aware that one (probably two) of his agents would be at her side as permanent shadows from now until she got fed up of them. "Doctor says she can go home in a couple of days. Reid and Morgan are replaying it with her and they'll keep us posted."

"We could always round up the three million guys the sketch looks like," Dave grumbled.

JJ, Prentiss and Pearce were waiting for them in the situation room. JJ held up her cell phone.

"That was the police," she announced. "They took the sketch back to the coffee shop, the restaurant. Came up empty."

"We even ran it through VICAP," Prentiss added, frustrated. "No hits."

"No luck with the rental car companies, no prints at the scene, no shell casings. The cell phone the guy used to call Garcia at work was a disposable," Aaron sighed. "The guy's a cypher."

"A career criminal," Grace remarked, running a hand through her honey-coloured hair in frustration. "I'd say a professional, except –"

"Except who could Garcia possibly piss off enough for that?" Emily finished.

"Exactly," the Brit agreed. "I mean, when would she have time?"

"D'you think he'll try again?" JJ asked, in a small voice.

Rossi patted her shoulder.

"He will if he finds out she made it."

0o0o0o0

"He knows enough to use legal terminology, but he's not actually a working lawyer," said Reid.

He and Morgan had just got back from the hospital and they'd immediately got together with the rest of the team. Any new clue would help. Dave had to hand it to them: when this team was attacked they didn't stop until their family was safe and whole again. Hell, he'd been with them two months and he already felt Garcia's assault as a personal affront. She was hard not to love.

"I think we're lookin' at someone who failed outta Harvard or didn't pass the bar," said Morgan.

"Did Garcia say if he gave any details about the cases he was supposed to be working on?" JJ asked.

Reid shook his head.

"No specifics?"

"If he failed outta the system it could explain why he's got a working vocabulary and not much more," Hotch observed.

"It could also explain his anger," Prentiss postulated. "Why he rails against other people's incompetence."

"Well he's clearly a narcissist," Dave added. "The clothes, the watch, where he went to school. He's faking humility when he's saying New Haven and Cambridge rather than Yale and Harvard."

"JJ, we need an analyst who can put our information through our legal database," Hotch commented.

"I'm on it."

0o0o0o0

He didn't look like much – almost the male version of Garcia, but more toned down, like he was more conscious of the social norms in Quantico. Kevin Lynch was tall, geeky and probably a little rounder than he wanted to be, but ultimately genial. Usually he worked Internal Affairs and Dave got the impression he didn't have a great deal of contact with people outside his immediate team. He seemed nice enough though, and if he could run Garcia's coveted behemoth of a system they'd finally be onto the son of a bitch who had hurt their analyst.

"Are you sure that other tech's okay with me being in her system?" he asked as they walked him to Garcia's lair. "We're kind of weird about that."

"We just need you to run some BAR association records," said Aaron, neatly avoiding the question.

"So why doesn't she do it?"

"She's in the hospital."

"Oh, you're talkin' about the analyst who got shot," said Lynch, nodding.

"That's right."

"Do you know who hit her?"

There was just enough of an edge in his voice to suggest that the other analysts were taking it personally too, even the ones who had never met Penelope Garcia.

"That's what we're hopin' to find out," Rossi told him.

Lynch looked around, a little uncomfortable in Penelope's kingdom.

"What?" Aaron asked.

"We're the gatekeepers to a whole lot of information," Lynch explained. "It's enough to make us all a little paranoid." He sat in Garcia's seat tentatively. "You know I could have done this at my computer."

Dave wasn't sure that was true. Garcia had everything laid out so all they needed was at her fingertips. It would be far quicker from here.

"First we need you to look up the name, 'James Colby Baylor,'" said Aaron, "and see if it shows up anywhere in the system."

"Whoa," Lynch exclaimed, as Garcia's screens sprung into life.

"What is it?" Dave asked.

"This system is _insane_ ," said Lynch, obviously impressed. "It's completely Linux based – open source programming. You don't see this in government systems – I mean, outside of, like, Switzerland."

Dave rolled his eyes. They didn't have time for this.

"James Colby Baylor," Hotch reminded him.

"Right, I get it – chop chop. Jeez."

They waited as politely as they could as he entered the search parameters.

"Uh-uh. Nothing."

Both agents huffed in frustration.

"Alright, let's start with a list of everyone in the area who either failed the BAR exam or was fired from a large law firm in the last five years," said Aaron.

"What, are you serious?" Lynch asked, surprised. "That's got to be, like, thousands of names."

Dave sighed internally. Garcia really was the cream of the crop. Her skills had rather spoiled the team for anyone else.

"Try narrowing it down to anyone with the initials 'JCB'," he suggested. "He had monogrammed shirts. Trust me, they ain't cheap."

Lynch followed his advice, but was quickly waylaid once more by the general awesomeness of Garcia's virtual realm.

"Is there a problem?" Hotch asked, after a moment.

"This might be the coolest girl I've ever met," Lynch remarked.

"You've never laid eyes on her," Dave pointed out.

"But her GUI is _mindblowing._ "

Dave shrugged at Aaron, who raised an eyebrow. Geeks.

"The list," his friend prodded.

"Well, _that's_ weird," Lynch said, frowning at the screen in front of him. He tried something and the computer made a disgruntled sound. "This isn't good…"


	8. Trouble

Essential Listening: F**kin' Perfect, P!nk

0o0

Grace was lounging in the corner of Garcia's hospital room when Hotch came in, watching Morgan help her friend put make-up on. It was a curiously tender sight and the two of them looked like something out of Renaissance art: Tristan and Isolde among the flowers her well-wishers had sent her.

Not for the first time, she wondered at their easy friendship and if either of them had ever considered taking it further. Probably not, she decided. Flirty and uncomplicated was how they functioned, but there was a deep bond of friendship there that would outlast any romance.

Reid was on Garcia's other side, the third member of today's bedside vigil.

"Hey," Garcia greeted their boss.

Grace sat up. Hotch had that there's-trouble-and-I-can't-stop-it look on his face. She exchanged worried glances with Reid, who had seen it too.

"How are you feeling?" Hotch asked, which meant they were still friends.

"You know, I've had better dates," Garcia joked.

"What's goin' on?" Morgan asked.

None of them failed to notice the new and unpleasant level of tension in the room.

"We found an encrypted file on your computer," Hotch explained, ignoring everyone but Garcia.

Grace bit her lip. Everyone looked at their favourite analyst, who looked – not resigned, exactly, more chastened.

"Are you involved in something that I need to know about?" Hotch asked, entirely serious.

His voice was gentle, suggesting that he didn't believe that she'd do something wrong on purpose.

"No."

"Hotch, what's goin' on?" Morgan repeated, anxious.

"Could this be connected in any way to whoever shot you?"

"I don't think so," Penelope shook her head.

"I need the password."

"Is this really necessary?" Morgan asked, protective now.

"Yes," said Hotch, in a tone that brooked no argument. "The password."

"Gilman Street," Garcia told him, after a beat.

"Thank you."

"They don't honestly think Garcia's a security risk, do they?" Reid asked, incredulous.

Grace chewed her lower lip some more. She knew the IPCC*, and if they were anything like that in the FBI they wouldn't take the chance. Couldn't take the chance. Garcia had access to and control over highly sensitive data – data that could potentially compromise the prosecution of hundreds of cases.

"I don't know," Hotch shook his head. "But we've been ordered by Internal Affairs to stop working the case."

"Like hell we are."

It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, but Hotch merely glanced in her direction and Grace surmised that he felt the same way.

"What?" Morgan demanded.

"And until this is cleared up, you've been suspended," he said heavily. "I'm sorry."

Grace saw the tears spring to Garcia's eyes. She frowned to herself. She knew that feeling very well. Reid and Morgan stared at Hotch as if he's suggested they all leave the FBI and buy a farm together, but Garcia only said, "Right," in the smallest of voices.

She felt her make the decision as Hotch left the room and moved to help her friend unplug all the wires.

"What are you doing?" Reid asked, alarmed.

"I need to get out of…"

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," said Morgan, gently pushing Grace away and Penelope back onto her hospital bed. "Please baby, listen to me. Listen!" He held her lightly in place. "Listen – we're going to get it straightened out. I'm gonna find out who did this to you. Okay? I don't give a damn what Internal Affairs wants me to do, or doesn't want me to do, but right now, you need to rest."

"Morgan," Grace said softly, "she needs to do this."

"But – but one of the last things I said before he shot me was, 'everything happens for a reason,'" Penelope told him, distressed. "Derek, if I lose faith in that then nothing in my life makes sense!"

"I get that."

"No, you don't," Penelope told him, flatly. "I have to do this."

Grace put a gentle hand on Morgan's shoulder.

"Would you boys give us a minute?" she asked.

He wavered for a moment, but gave in.

"Try to talk some sense into her," he instructed, but Grace didn't say anything.

She waited until he and Reid were out of the room before sitting on the edge of Penelope's bed. She took her friend's hands.

"Suspension is scary as hell," she said. "But it's not the end of the world.

Penelope Garcia stared at her, tearful and wide-eyed.

"It's horrible and invasive and uncomfortable, but it ends – and you've done nothing wrong, right?"

"Right."

"So, in a week or two, when they take you off the painkillers, we'll go out and have a drink and laugh about how stupid they all are. We'll be wondering what all the fuss was about. The IPCC meant well in London and I suspect Internal Affairs do here, too."

Garcia swallowed.

"Now, I know you," Grace told her. "You're a smart, sexy, slightly crazy, insanely strong woman and if you tell me that you need to be someplace other than here, working on the case that there is no _way_ any of us is going to drop then I'll believe you, but –" She pressed Penelope's shoulder gently back down as she began to rise. " _But_ if you have any doubt you can get through the next few days without further medical attention then I'm going to handcuff you to this bed."

She managed to hold onto the stern expression for about as long as Penelope managed not to smile.

The analyst gave a wet, painful giggle.

"I always knew you were a kinky one, 007," she croaked, grinning weakly.

"Come on, let's get you out of that gown," Grace said, with a sufficiently salacious wink to get Garcia laughing again.

She helped her put on her civvies – much more slowly and carefully than Penelope probably wanted her to. Swiftly, Penelope gave Grace a hug; she held her friend gingerly, not wanting to squeeze anything too hard.

"How do you know?" Penelope asked, when she let go.

"Hmm?"

"About suspension."

"Oh, er…" Grace compressed her lips. It was Garcia though, and she'd been through a lot, so she threw her a lopsided smile. "I had a mouth on me back home," she said, by way of explanation, "and a fist to back it up – and I couldn't leave a thing alone."

Garcia nodded, looking calmer.

"But you were reinstated," she pointed out.

"And so will you be, Supergirl."

They regarded one another for a moment, each content to know that the other had secrets without knowing exactly what they were.

"I thought you were talking sense, not organisin' an escape attempt," Morgan complained from the doorstep. "Back in bed."

"No," said Penelope, and this time _her_ tone brooked no argument. "I need this, Derek."

"Why?" Reid asked, just behind him.

Garcia sighed and started packing her things, facing away from them all, keeping her expression hidden.

"After my parents died I kind of went off the rails for a while," she began. This was clearly something Penelope was far from comfortable about sharing, but right now she didn't have much choice. "I dropped out of Cal Tech. I lived underground, basically, but I kept teaching myself code. It was like the one thing that kept me together."

She fell silent for a few minutes. Grace fiddled with her father's watch, not wanting to pressure her.

"You were a hacker," she said at last, when she couldn't stand the silence any longer.

Garcia nodded, still facing the wall.

"I was one of the best."

Reid nodded slowly, as if Garcia suddenly made a lot more sense.

"They caught you."

"Hotch caught me."

 _Wow._

"So they offered you a job?" Reid asked.

Penelope nodded,

"It's like Frank Abagnale," he said. "The Bureau figured, if you can't beat him, hire him."

Garcia shrugged, uncomfortable, "Yeah, something like that."

"Garcia, what's on the encrypted file?" Morgan asked.

She finally turned around.

"I'm required to keep a record of everything the team does," she explained, almost timidly. "And after my system got hacked and Elle got shot… I – I just didn't want anyone else to get at you."

 _So that was what happened to Elle_ , Grace thought, filing the information away to think about later.

"Oh love," she said, affectionately.

"I'll talk to the doctor," said Reid, coming to a decision. "See if he'll clear you to leave."

Grace put an arm around Penelope's shoulder.

"You do realise that all this just makes you even more awesome, right?" she asked, giving her friend's shoulders a squeeze.

0o0o0o0

"You know, I'm not sure home really is the best place for her right now," Grace mused as she and Reid drove back to Quantico.

"You talked us into it," he pointed out.

"Yeah, well it's what I'd do," she said. "But I'm…"

 _Reckless. Foolish. Too damn stubborn for my own good._

"I just wonder if it's too soon for her to go back to the place she was nearly murdered on the doorstep of is all."

"Morgan will be there," Reid assured her. "He'll look after her."

"I guess."

He was watching her out of the corner of his eye again. A bad habit Grace would have to snap him out of before it became entrenched.

"It's not your fault, you know."

"What isn't?" she asked, keeping her voice casual and her eyes forward. She had a fairly good idea of what he might say and she didn't want to hear it. Trust Spencer to work it out.

"Telling her to call him back," he said, reasonably. "You had no way of knowing. None of us did."

Grace chewed the small ridge that was forming on the inside of her lip. She could do with a break from all this emotional crap.

"I know," she told him, lightly.

 _But knowing it doesn't stop me feeling like this._

0o0o0o0

The first thing Morgan did on entering Garcia's apartment was chuckle. It was bright and carefree, and very Penelope.

"I – um, I would expect nothing less," he told her when he caught her watching for his reaction. She smiled at his obvious affection for her and laughed.

"You should be flattered," she told him. "Not many people are invited in off the grid."

He looked around approvingly and his eyes fell on an old, but well-tended projector.

"Super eight?"

"Yeah," Penelope said, turning it on.

Morgan watched as the images flickered into life on the wall. There was a young girl, laughing and dancing with her parents – Penelope, he realised. She looked so little.

 _You always were adorable_ , he thought.

"I always imagined myself fighting crime," she told him. "My parents were hippies. I think it horrified them."

Morgan nodded.

"How old were you when you lost them?" he asked, watching his young friend dance across the wall.

"Eighteen. Drunk driver."

He nodded again, unsure what to say. Hell, there was nothing he _could_ say. He picked up a timetable off the counter instead, curious.

"I volunteer once a week," Penelope explained. "Counsel family members of murder victims."

Derek gaped at her.

"Baby, you don't get enough of this stuff at work?"

Penelope shook her head, smiling slightly.

"I look at those crime scene photos all day long," she said. "I can't know that those families are out there trying to cope and not do something to help."

Derek looked at her fondly. She was all kinds of crazy, but she was also possibly the kindest person on the planet. His very own warrior for Karma.

"You do know it was stupid to encrypt that file," he said aloud.

"Yes, I know," she said – and he believed her. "Old habits, I guess."

"You need some rest."

"You're right," she said, and hugged him. "Go. Be free, my love."

"Hey," he complained, before she could hustle him out of the door. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

"What? I'm fine," she protested. "I got my goon squad parked out front."

"Good squad or no goon squad, that couch right there is gonna be my best friend until we find this guy, now leave it alone," he insisted.

Penelope smiled properly this time, looking both flattered and relieved. Derek shook his head: they had come this close to never seeing that smile again – he wasn't about to take any chances now.

"Okay." She paused in the doorway to her bedroom. "But if you're thinking of trying to take advantage of me, let me call my doctor so he can revive me afterward."

They both giggled.

"Hey silly girl," he said softly. She tilted her head towards him. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you, too," she said, smiling sweetly.

"Go to bed."

Garcia stuck out her tongue.

0o0o0o0

"I don't know about you, but I could do without any more late night emergency calls for a while," Grace grumbled, from the back of the SUV.

Garcia had been home for three hours – just long enough for her and Morgan to fall asleep – before their UnSub had struck. Now another officer was lying dead on the street in front of the Stanford Arms Apartments.

JJ nodded fervently, focusing on the road.

"This is getting out of hand."

Spencer didn't comment. As far as he was concerned, it had got out of hand at about the time Garcia was shot and Grace showed up at his front door when he was wearing only a towel.

They piled out of the car and into the building, pausing briefly beside the body of Garcia's surveillance officer.

"So much for that," Grace muttered darkly. "Poor bastard."

Spencer glanced at her. Her body language and general demeanour suggested that he ought to try to get food or caffeine into her before letting her speak to anyone off the team.

"What is going on?" JJ asked as she got through the door of Garcia's apartment, making a beeline for her friend. She sounded as exasperated as Reid felt.

"I don't know. This guy's getting' seriously bold and I can guarantee you it's not over," said Morgan, checking the street below from Garcia's living room window.

Spencer leaned over JJ's shoulder, anxious for his friend. Garcia had clearly been crying, but she was holding it together now. Grace stood sentinel by the door, an unreadable expression on her face.

 _This was my idea_ , her stance seemed to say, _and I am going to fix it._

"Are you okay?" JJ asked.

"I don't know what he wants from me," Garcia complained, tearfully.

"Could you know something about him?"

It was the only thing that makes sense.

"I don't know."

"Maybe you have something he wants?"

"I don't know who he is," she insisted, sounding panicky. "I'm so scared!"

"I know," said JJ, taking her hands.

"Hey," said Emily; Grace moved out of the door to let the rest of the team in. "You get a look at him?"

"Nothin' solid," Morgan told her, tense.

Emily nodded, still moving, and enveloped Garcia in a hug.

"Garcia, we need to get you back to the hospital," said Hotch.

"No, you know what? You should still be there," JJ insisted.

Without turning around, Spencer felt Grace shift uncomfortably. He frowned – she probably thought that was her fault, too.

"We need to get her some place safe." JJ continued.

"I feel safe with all of you," Garcia said, halting that line of thought.

It _would_ take a lot to get through all seven of them right now, particularly given how pissed off they all were.

"We could take you to the BAU," Hotch suggested, thinking that several hundred agents would be even harder to get to.

Garcia nodded, but then her gaze was caught by something in the corner – or maybe it was the corner itself.

"Garcia?" JJ asked.

"You okay?" Spencer frowned, looking around. For a moment he wondered whether her recent brush with death had given her a taste of Grace's second sight.

"When we were at dinner, they wanted to seat us by a window, but he insisted on sitting at the worst table in the place," she told them, slowly, with the air of someone working something out for the first time. "And he sat with his back to the corner."

"Hypervigilance?" Grace wondered aloud.

They waited while Hotch and the detective cleared the room.

"Tell us about the car," Spencer said.

"Why?"

"Just go with him." Morgan encouraged.

"You said it was white, four door, American – but what else?" Spencer pressed her.

If they were right about this…

"That's it, it was just a car."

"Now, come on, think," Morgan prodded, gently. "Anything. Go back."

"His – his seatbelt was buckled behind his back."

 _Oh God_.

Behind him, Grace swore. Their colleagues exchanged meaningful looks, shocked.

"Why does that matter?" Garcia asked, confused.

"It wasn't a rental," Morgan explained. "It was for surveillance."

" _Agents_ don't wear seatbelts," Emily told her. "They need to get out in a hurry."

"Alright, let's cut the crap!" said Rossi abruptly, seriously annoyed. "You need to be straight with us, right now."

Spencer stared at him, startled. The older agent squatted before her, demanding her full attention. Suddenly, Grace was a good deal nearer to Garcia than she had been before.

"Look at me, not at them," Rossi insisted.

"But – I'm not hiding anything," Garcia protested.

"You get shot. Most people get shot for a reason – eyes here!" he snapped, when she looked around for help.

"Hey," Spencer said, alarmed, but Grace's fingers closed around his shoulder.

He caught the shake of her head out of the corner of his eye. Clearly, she felt that Rossi was onto something, but Garcia had just been shot for crying out loud.

"Hey, ease up Rossi!" Morgan snapped.

"You've got a room full of people here willing to believe that an FBI agent is trying to kill you," he insisted, waving these protests down. "We need to know everything you do on company time that we don't know about."

He saw the change in her face at the same time as Rossi.

"What?"

"Come on, now," Morgan said again, a warning in his voice.

"It's nothing bad –"

"Spit it out!"

"It's nothing bad!" Garcia cried, an octave higher than before. "It's – I counsel victims' families, and they know where I work, so sometimes they ask me to look into cases for them."

"What does that mean?"

"It just means that the cases – the unsolved ones – I tag them so whoever's investigating them knows that the FBI considers them a priority."

Several people gasped. Spencer marvelled at the generous audacity of the woman. She was always trying to help, but…

"You're not authorised to do that," said Hotch, exasperated.

"I know," Garcia said, chastened. "I was just trying to help."

"But whoever is working those cases thinks you're watching them," Emily explained.

Garcia gulped. Clearly, she hadn't even thought of that.

"I just wanted to put pressure on them so that they don't slide," Garcia protested.

"How many cases are we talking about?" Hotch asked her.

"I don't know. Seven – eight maybe? I need to get into my system…"

"You can't," he reminded her. "You're suspended."

"Wait a minute," Morgan interrupted. "Garcia, on your date you said this guy was pressing you to find out if you were working murder cases?"

"He was fishing," said Grace.

"Hotch, we got to look at those files," said Morgan.

Hotch sighed, clearly weighing how badly this could go for the team. He looked at Rossi.

"I told you," said the older agent fiercely. "I'm sick of this jack-off being in front of us."

"Dave's right," he said, after a moment's consideration. "We'll go back to the BAU. Morgan, Reid, Pearce, Prentiss – you stay here and make sure no one forgets to log out of the system. Garcia should not have access."

Spencer watched them go. Part of him was astonished at Hotch. He had all but told them to breach some serious rules. Not that he'd hesitate, if it helped Garcia; not that anyone would.

He watched as Emily wandered nonchalantly over to Garcia's laptop to check her emails, gratified that he was part of a team – a family – who would break every rule there was to keep one another safe.

0o0o0o0

Kevin Lynch hurried through the corridors towards the elevators.

He'd never seen a system like Penelope Garcia's, and going one-on-one with her had convinced him she was a force to be reckoned with. If that apparent paragon of hacking and geekery was looking at someone's records there had to be a reason.

It wasn't technically in his job description (and he certainly shouldn't be doing this while she was suspended) but he had to talk to her. He had a bad feeling about Deputy Battle that he couldn't shake and he knew his superiors wouldn't tell him enough to be helpful.

No: the best source of information here would be his fellow technician. Assuming the rest of the team (he knew they had to be there, she'd blatantly used one of their accounts to get in) let him in. At the moment, he wouldn't have been surprised if they shot him on sight.

If they didn't, he'd still be suspended (or possibly fired) for contacting her…

It was a risk he would have to take.

He was far from an expert in the hunting and catching of serial killers, but he had a feeling that anyone who showed up to seven out of seven major murder cases was not a healthy candidate for Citizen of the Year.

Hell, he was probably the one who shot his fellow tech in the first place.

When Deputy Battle stepped out of the elevator, Kevin nearly had a heart attack. He nearly had a second one when his boss asked him to follow him into the BAU bullpen to look into his records.

While he hadn't had any field or behavioural training, Kevin's internal warning system went off. Deputy Battle was tense – far too tense for an innocent officer simply answering a few questions about an agent who had been suspended (as far as he knew) for looking into his files. A fine sheen of sweat had formed over the man's face, though Lynch's boss didn't seem to have noticed. His hands were clenching and unclenching.

As he followed him into the bullpen, Kevin could see the signs of a man about to snap. And he was armed.

And if Kevin could tell how afraid Battle was, then Battle could probably sense the same thing in him.

He had to warn someone – but what could he do?

He heard Battle's request for his files to be removed as if it came from a long way off and ducked his head. This could be just what he needed. Moving on terrified autopilot, he sat at the first desk he came to: someone called Agent Morgan, if the label was to be believed.

He opened the page he needed for the records and then – when Battle was listening to Agent Cattermole – an invitation to Miss Garcia.

It was a painful few seconds before she accepted it and he prayed that she would assume he was holding to the code and not trying to trap her. His palms were sweating; he wiped them on his trousers.

Battle appeared over his shoulder, but fortunately there was nothing he could have seen – the average Joe doesn't recognise a few lines of code, after all.

"What's taking so long?"

"I'm just doing it now," said Kevin, accessing the man's files as slowly as humanly possible.

His heart swelled for a moment when he saw her accept; he sent her the link to the CCTV as fast as he could type, hoping that she would know what to do.

He made some noises about a slow connection as Battle eyed him up from behind. In one glance, Kevin could tell that the man was hyper-aware, his gaze roving around the room and at the exits. Hypervigilance. That was a bad sign. If he felt trapped, then…

To Kevin's immense relief, both Agent Hotchner and Agent Rossi nonchalantly emerged from their offices and started moving slowly towards them, looking for all the world like two agents immersed in paperwork. Garcia must have tipped them off.

"And… that's it," he said, making a final sort of noise on the computer.

Battle's fast moving gaze travelled over him and over the computer. Kevin's heart sank. He didn't look reassured.

He made to stand up slowly, but fell back as Battle pulled his gun and put Agent Cattermole, Kevin's boss, in a headlock. Around him, agents pulled their weapons; he had just enough time to think about how close to the centre of something that was likely to become a hail of bullets he was before Battle started yelling at everyone to back up.

Kevin's hands shot up involuntarily and he tried to make himself as small a target as possible. His mind was working overdrive, stretching out the seconds into an eternity. Battle had his undivided attention now, less than six feet away from him. He could see the exact moment the man decided that he wasn't getting out of here alive; Kevin closed his eyes.

If his life was going to end here and now, he didn't want to see it coming.

The gunshot shook him – he nearly jumped out of the chair. His eyes flew open, expecting a second shot and a third, but instead Deputy Battle slumped to the floor, leaving Cattermole to stumble, jelly-legged, away.

Kevin looked up to see the main door of the bull-pen shatter and a slim, small, blonde woman lowering her gun. She looked about as surprised as everyone else.

0o0o0o0

Grace stepped lightly over the shattered remains of the door and surveyed the bullpen. Agents were milling around all over, along with the odd paramedic.

Everybody looked a little shell-shocked. The violence of their jobs didn't generally make it into the building in so forceful a fashion. Since they were technically still excluded from the investigation, none of the team were taking statements.

Mostly, they appeared to be talking down those of their colleagues who'd been there when Deputy Battle had taken his hostage and been taken out.

Grace navigated her way through the busier-than-normal kitchen area and made a cup of hot, sweet tea from her special stash. She dropped it on the table JJ was resting against when the agent interviewing her had finished taking her statement.

"Good shot," she congratulated her, squeezing her friend's shoulder.

The first ones were always the worst. Taking a life was always more bitter and more disturbing than it seemed on paper, training and firearms licence or no.

JJ was a tough cookie; it would take time, but she would get through it (all the more quickly given what the man had already done) – and every member of their little family would be there for her when she needed them. She looked up, still a little dazed.

Seeing that Garcia was approaching, Grace gave her friends some space. JJ and Penelope were the closest in their little family, after all, save Morgan.

Spencer was sitting on her desk, waiting for her.

"We're being released," he told her. "As soon as they're done with JJ."

"Internal Affairs?" she asked, glancing over at the man Detective Battle had taken hostage. Even now, a good hour after the fact, he was still shaking.

Briefly, she flirted with the idea of making him a cup of tea, too – he certainly looked like he needed one. A surge of protectiveness welled up in her chest and she decided against it. He _had_ suspended Penelope, after all.

"I think he's so relieved he doesn't care anymore," Spencer smiled slightly. "Hotch said so long as we write up a report each by the end of tomorrow, Internal Affairs will be satisfied."

Grace nodded.

Even locked out of the investigation they'd done most of the work in any case. It might have been a different story if the technician from Internal Affairs hadn't found his way out of Garcia's electronic wormhole and pegged Battle at the door to the BAU. Without his quick thinking it would have been far bloodier and as it stood, Lynch's involvement meant Internal Affairs could claim partial responsibility for a clean take down.

She perched beside Spencer on her desk. It was late enough in the evening and chaotic enough a situation for them to give up on any pretence of working. Grace didn't think she'd care if the Director himself walked in – she was too tired and too relieved to worry anymore. The fear of the past few days had matured into hazy pink clouds of woolliness that she was in no hurry to disperse.

So instead she sat side by side with Spencer and watched the two analysts who had saved the day cautiously flirt with one another.

0o0

 _Some creatures just cannot help but stand out from all the rest._

 _Tyler Knott Gregson_

0o0

*Independent Police Complaints Commission, UK.


	9. Melting Pot

Essential listening: The Original, Incubus

0o0

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and they had spent their morning wandering around the local farmer's market in Fairfax. Spencer had run into Grace there several weeks running in November, once she'd made herself at home in Apple Tree Lane, and after a while they had simply decided to meet there intentionally. It had become a regular haunt; so routine that when they were away chasing America's most nefarious he really missed it.

When they were both in town, Grace would appear in the park – somehow gauging when his chess game would end with frightening accuracy – and they would stroll through the market eating free samples and poring over the used book stall.

Grace said it reminded her of Borough Market, where she'd wandered between shifts back in London (he'd looked it up at the library at the first opportunity). The similarity seemed to make her feel less homesick, though she hid her discomfort well, and she would speak fondly of her life before the BAU – usually a subject that was very much off-limits. In fact, the market-place was one of the few places she could be pressed into talking about her old home and Spencer had made it into a kind of game: testing how much he could get out of her before the edge of bitterness crept in her voice and she stopped smiling.

So he would tease the information out of her while she decided between cucumbers and radishes, or made him try slices of venison or wild boar sausages, or cheerfully poked fun at how much caffeine he was consuming, even at the weekend. Most Saturdays he'd walk back to her house with her and they would watch Doctor Who, or bicker about Greek philosophy, or the proper definition of 'fae'. Sometimes he simply forgot to go home and slept on her new sofa.

Occasionally he wondered whether 'home' wasn't a place so much as a person, but that kind of thought led to dangerous territory, so he ignored it.

He had a shrewd suspicion that Grace knew all about the game. She kept so much of her life close to her chest that anything she chose to share with him made him feel oddly privileged. He found himself pleased with each new fragment of information. He was building a picture of his friend _before_ – a little like working a profile backwards, or putting together a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces remained blank until they slotted into place.

She was remarkably tolerant about it, Spencer reflected, considering his boundless curiosity. It was something he had initially thought they didn't have in common, that curiosity, but now he'd known her for a little while he recognised that she was just as fascinated by people. She had simply learned to be patient.

When it came to discovering Grace's past, so had he.

The day was still cold, but the sunshine was making late March feel a lot more summery than it had any real claim to. Warm from his walk around the market and the usual tussle of wills with Grace over whatever they were currently debating, Spencer strode up the street beside her. Apple Tree Lane was elegant in its wintry clothes; those parts of the garden which were still sheltered from the sun sparkled with the rime of a late frost. Beneath the beds, he knew, Grace's garden was sleeping, waiting for the opportunity to reward her autumnal labours.

His labours too, if he thought about it. Slave labour.

He remarked as such to Grace as she let them in and she scoffed, telling him that it wasn't slave labour if he got to taste the results. Dumping his groceries on the table, Spencer shrugged; the slave labour argument was a familiar, half-hearted one by now, largely returned to in jest. Instead, he returned to the subject at hand: Grace had decided to introduce Garcia, who was still forbidden from working, to her old, extremely shy friend Alice.

Spencer could see a couple of problems with this.

"I – uh – thought you said she wasn't good at meeting new people?" he asked, tucking his hair back behind his ears and stripping off his coat.

"She isn't," she said, as he followed her into her kitchen. It was warmer there and Spencer stretched his back appreciatively. "But talking online is nothing like talking in real life."

She paused as they shoved both sets of groceries in her refrigerator, before continuing thoughtfully, "Garcia's exactly the kind of person who could bring Alice out of her shell, and after Deputy Battle…"

They shared a grimace. Penelope's attempted murder had been hard on all of them and while she was gallantly pretending to be okay, no one was really fooled. She was, however, going slowly insane while confined to her apartment on medical leave and almost the entire BAU were covertly trying to keep her occupied.

"I figured a project might give her something different to focus on."

Spencer snorted.

"You don't think Alice would be offended by you referring to her as a 'project'?" he asked, leaning against the counter while his friend made lunch.

She always made enough for him, even without asking. He smiled slightly.

"I think she'd call me an 'interfering old witch'," she responded, amused. "And she'd be quite correct."

She shot him an impish grin, her bright blue eyes flashing with mischief and affection for her old friend; he laughed.

"But I also know that like Garcia, Alice sees more of the darkness in the world than she should, and as such, needs all the allies she can get – and like Garcia, she'd do anything in her power to help someone who needed it."

Spencer nodded, considering his friend. She seldom made direct reference to her more unusual talents unless he asked a specific question – and not always then. Sometimes Grace would simply smile cryptically and remain infuriatingly silent, or else turn the conversation to something different. On some subjects, she would simply not be drawn.

The way the corner of her mouth was quirking upwards suggested she knew exactly what he was thinking, too.

He made two mugs of Gunpowder Green tea, speculating that if Grace ever decided to live up to her stereotypes, poisoned apples and gingerbread cottages would be the least of his worries.

The phone rang just as Grace was lifting her sandwich to her mouth and she swore in Anglo-Saxon. Spencer sighed, resigned to the interrupted pattern of life that resulted from working for the FBI.

"Fine," Grace grumbled, almost to herself. "But I'm taking the sandwich with me. Hey JJ…"

0o0o0o0

"You brought a packed lunch?" Emily asked when they'd all got in.

Reid and Pearce were eating sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, as though they had been on a picnic. It reminded Emily strongly of school field trips, particularly when both of them stuck their tongues out at her. The two agents made a strangely intimate pair, though it wasn't unusual for team-members to grab food together at the weekend. They were often that way, however; Emily had almost given up on trying to work out if they were secretly dating. She was reasonably sure that if they _were_ , neither of them had noticed yet.

She eyed the sandwiches jealously.

"I'd literally just made them," Pearce shrugged, between mouthfuls.

"Where's mine?" Rossi teased, amused.

"Back in my fridge," Pearce quipped, and he laughed.

"Hey!" Reid protested, swatting Emily's hand away from his lunch – but not quickly enough to prevent her extracting a slice of tomato.

"Play nice, Pretty Boy," Morgan joked, dropping into the seat next to Rossi.

"She's the one stealing my lunch," Reid protested, a note of petulance in his voice.

He shot Emily a dirty look, which didn't work very well because he was already beginning to smile.

"Eh, Bambini," Rossi admonished, without much conviction.

They all looked up as Kevin Lynch came in, still on loan from Internal Affairs while Garcia was out of action. Their family-like banter evaporated – he was still kind of a stranger, it would be a while before he was fully endorsed, as it were.

"Sorry – um, Agent Hotchner asked me to sit in…" he said, hesitantly.

Lynch was a competent tech, but he was no Penelope, and while the team were trying to be friendly there were times when his lack of experience and their impatience showed through. It had made him a little shy when they were all together in a group, though as the speed of his cross-checking increased, that was wearing off.

Self-consciously, he took a seat on the edge of the room by the window, where Gideon had often lounged when they worked through a case. Emily watched Pearce give the tech an encouraging smile before slam-dunking her empty sandwich wrapper into the trashcan. Reid, who attempted to follow suit, missed by about a mile and had to go and retrieve it.

Emily snickered to herself. Their resident genius was adorably inept at times.

Hotch and JJ hurried in as he retook his seat, both looking harassed. Emily glanced through the window to the bullpen and caught Chief Strauss's expression as she stalked out of the door. _She_ looked irritable as hell, too. Emily frowned.

What was going on?

"Good, you're all here," said Hotch, briskly taking them all in. "I've asked Kevin Lynch to join us today since this is an unusual case and may need some equally unusual tactics. JJ?"

"At eleven o'clock this morning, a body was found by the janitor at Fairview House School in Cambridge, Massachusetts."

 _Oh dear._

Emily raised her eyebrows. Around the room, everyone sat up a little straighter – everyone except Grace Pearce, who looked faintly confused and then faintly annoyed. It was a familiar pattern now, cropping up in the face of America pop-culture and weird local idiosyncrasies that everyone else seemed to get. It made Emily wonder how they would fare if any of them ever ended up helping out a team in England.

This time, Rossi took pity on her.

"It's an exclusive, upper-class boarding school upriver," he explained. "About an hour out from Harvard, so they have some pretty strong links – that's where most of their students end up."

Grace nodded, clearly finding a British analogy to link it to in her mind as Morgan added, "The intake is pretty much rich kids, children of senators, the occasional movie star with political leanin's."

"And, as of next term, the Director's nephew," Hotch stated.

Everyone groaned. That explained a lot.

"The Principal called the boy's father, who called his brother, who called his aide, who called Strauss," JJ listed, still sounding annoyed. "We're to have full access to the school and we're staying in the guest quarters."

"On campus?" Reid asked.

"On campus."

"They really want this solved, huh?" Morgan whistled.

"Or brushed under the carpet," Grace suggested.

Hotch nodded.

"We've been instructed," he said in the manner of one greatly put upon, "to investigate this murder with the utmost discretion."

"And there's no question of conflict of interest?" Rossi asked, a little incredulous.

Hotch shook his head and sat down, his whole attitude suggesting that they should all very much _not_ go there.

"Why us?" Morgan asked.

"This is why," said JJ, clicking the remote presenter thing.

There was the sense of everybody in the room mentally taking a step back.

"Whoa," said Emily, wide-eyed.

"Oh my God," Lynch exclaimed faintly, from somewhere behind them.

"That's… specific," Grace remarked, leaning forward.

On the screen were several images of a white, Caucasian, brown haired man in his mid-to-late thirties, who had quite obviously been shot in the chest.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been particularly unusual, except that the man had also – probably (hopefully) post mortem – been crucified. Someone had even taken the time to pose him: legs slightly crossed, head to one side. A life-size icon.

They'd really gone to town on the 'scene', too, bathing the end of the corridor in light – a stage light, perhaps – and closing all the blinds in the other rooms along the corridor. It was strangely theatrical. Almost elegant, in a morbid sort of way.

Someone was quite definitely making a statement with this one.

"This is unusually deliberate," Reid observed, pensively, leaning across the desk. "Clear iconography – religious angle."

"Or someone aping it," Emily agreed. "Could be misdirection. Are his hands bound, or…"

"Bound," JJ confirmed. "Thankfully. The ropes have been daubed with blood. Forensics have taken samples to confirm it's his."

"Who is he?" Morgan asked, flicking through the as yet slim file.

"Chris Carpenter, thirty-seven, school counsellor," said JJ.

"Which opens the pool of suspects _right_ up," Emily sighed.

"We're waiting on the coroner to confirm, but it looks like time of death was late last night," Hotch told them. "Which narrows it down a little. The school is effectively in lock-down between ten p.m. and six a.m., when the gates open for deliveries."

"So, either the murder was committed by someone who snuck in and left first-thing," Grace began.

"Which Lynch has already ruled out," said JJ, with a nod at the borrowed tech.

He gave them all an awkward little wave.

"Or it's someone in the school," Grace finished.

"No one has been allowed to leave since they discovered the body," JJ added, "and the only people allowed _in_ were the coroner and a handful of local cops."

"The classic Country House murder," Grace mused.

Silence fell for a moment as everyone reviewed their files or pored over the images on the screen.

"Blitz attack," Reid said, eventually.

"The rest of it had to take time," Emily mused. A lot of time. "And effort – what's he hanging from?"

She squinted at the picture and JJ obligingly zoomed in.

"A scaffolding bar from the school's theatre – it's just down the hall from there."

"Must have taken some doing to get him up there," Morgan reflected.

"Could one of the kids have done it?" Emily asked.

"The older, more athletic ones, maybe," JJ guessed.

"Looks like they used some kind of pulley," Rossi observed.

Pearce, who had been leaning forward, gave up and got up to have a closer look.

"This bar," she said, tapping the screen lightly with her pen and earning a dirty look from Lynch that she took no notice of whatsoever. "Looks pretty permanent. The light too."

"Maybe the UnSub made use of things that were already in place?" Hotch proposed.

"A display, maybe?" Emily suggested, following the direction of their thoughts.

"Could be," said Pearce, sitting back down. "What do schools put in prominent positions?"

The answers came from all quarters:

"Grade scores."

"Newspaper reports."

"Certificates."

"Posters."

"Notices?"

"Students' work."

"Trophies?" Lynch suggested, and the room fell gravely silent.

Rossi nodded slowly.

"Could be a way of sticking two fingers up at the school," he said.

"He's mockin' them," Morgan said.

"Whoever did this is pretty unhappy with Fairview," said Emily. "And if they're part of the school community…"

"We need to get out there," Hotch agreed. "Lynch, I want you to delve into the victim's background. Get into his computer and take it apart. We need to know everything about him."

"Got it."

"See if you can't access the school's files, while you're at it," Rossi added. "For a tight community like that, talking to outsiders is really gonna rankle. It'll be useful to know what they _don't_ wanna tell us."

"Wheels up in twenty," said Hotch, gathering his papers together.


	10. In the Spotlight

**Essential Listening: Requiem in D Minor, Mozart**

 **0o0**

 _A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on._

 _Terry Pratchett_

0o0

"You guys must be the FBI." The handsome young suit waiting beside the door had the look of a man whose usually quiet patch had suddenly become quite eventful. "I'm Jacob Whiteley, lead detective on this one, for my sins."

"Jennifer Jareau," said JJ, shaking his hand. "This is SSA Derek Morgan, SSA Emily Prentiss, SSA Grace Pearce and Doctor Spencer Reid."

Everyone nodded, waved or shook hands with Whiteley as they were introduced. He seemed relieved to see them, which was almost a good sign in terms of co-operation, but less so if you started to wonder _why_.

"SSAs Hotchner and Rossi are meeting with the principal right now…" JJ trailed off as a shadow passed across the young man's face.

"Rather them than me," he said in an undertone, conscious that there were other personnel nearby. "I spent two hours with her this morning and I felt like I'd not only forgotten my homework, but forgotten my gym kit too."

"Tough cookie?" Morgan asked, amused.

"You got that right," said Whiteley. "They don't really want us here," he continued, waving an arm at the buildings around them, full of new world colonial charm. "Polluting the shades of Fairview and all that. Cops, I suspect, are not the 'Right Kind of People'," he added, pronouncing the capital letters with a wan smile.

"Surely she wants this solved," said Reid, frowning.

"Yeah," said Whiteley, still somehow contriving to keep this conversation private. Grace was impressed. "But on her own terms. I got the distinct impression that I wasn't welcome."

"She was rude?" Prentiss asked, surprised.

Detective Whiteley hesitated.

"Not precisely," he said. "She was just…"

"Exactly what you might expect from the principal of a posh boarding school an hour from Harvard?" Grace guessed, and watched Whiteley's eyes widen slightly at her accent.

"Yeah, exactly that," he said, laughing a little. "I'm pretty sure she was keeping something back, too, but I didn't seem to be able to form sentences properly. I think she knows this is only my second case…"

Ah, thought Grace, someone with Personality. Someone with Bearing. Poor old Whiteley. Not what you wanted to be contending with on an early case – particularly one with a crucified corpse in the middle of it. Still, this would probably be the making of him – if he could solve it. Good that he recognised what the principal was doing to him, even if he couldn't do anything about it yet. That was a skill that developed over time – one which coppers had to nurture, really, if they wanted to get anything useful done. It was like a second, thicker skin, existing around the personality like a shield.

Personality and Bearing were things that in an earlier century would have been passed straight to Grace's old unit as occult. These days, though, it was firmly in the purview of behavioural science. She wondered whether the principal knew she was doing it...

Probably, she decided, seeing as the woman is in charge of an institution like Fairview. As JJ assured Whiteley that they weren't here to tread on his toes and he assured her that he would be ecstatic if they did, Grace wondered how long it would take her to realise it wouldn't work on Rossi or Hotch.

0o0

Dave watched the principal watching them out of the corner of his eye. Ms Blake was tense, which was to be expected in the given situation, but there was something about the tension that made him a little edgy.

She had introduced herself with all the confidence of a woman who was used to her word being treated as gospel, and Hotch had skilfully allowed her to believe that this would continue to be the case without actually ever saying it aloud. Not for the first time, Dave wished he could have seen his friend in court, back when he was making waves as a prosecutor. That, he believed, would have been a thing to behold.

She had been trying to control the conversation throughout, without seeming to do so at all. Now, as they ran through the details of their accommodation and the preliminary circumstances of the discovery of her school counsellor's body, Ms Blake was being scrupulously polite. There was something about that politeness, however, that suggested wariness: perhaps he and Hotch weren't quite what she was expecting.

On the whole, he thought, she didn't seem all that cut up about her colleague's untimely death – but perhaps that was simply shock. People reacted to murder in different ways, after all.

"Of course," Ms Blake said, primly, "every member of the school will cooperate fully with your investigation. We would, naturally, appreciate it if you could proceed with the utmost discretion. While I'm aware that one of our colleagues has been tragically killed, we do have the reputation of our school to consider."

She sounded a lot like a living press release.

"Thank you for organising accommodation on-site," said Dave, deciding that it was best not to acknowledge this obvious fishing expedition for official assurance.

The woman's piercing, golden gaze turned onto him.

"You are most welcome, Agent Rossi," she said, contriving to sound magnanimous. "Anything we can do to ensure a swift resolution to this regrettable incident." She turned back to Aaron with a commanding air. "I don't need to tell you, Agent Hotchner, that as soon as the parents of these children catch a breath of this they will want them evacuated immediately."

She looked expectantly between the two agents for a moment, but neither man had any intention of pandering to her diplomatic posturing.

"Did Chris Carpenter have any enemies?" Aaron asked instead.

"Every school counsellor has a score of students who don't like him," said Ms Blake, almost dismissively. The pinched expression returned to her face.

"You didn't like him all that much," Dave deduced.

Her eyes flicked towards him momentarily, but her hesitance was quickly covered.

"Chris was a good counsellor," she said, carefully, "but no one gets along with every one of their colleagues all of the time."

"In what way?" Hotch asked.

"I don't see how this is relevant," Ms Blake sniffed, compressing her lips into a tight, ruler-straight line.

"The man was murdered," said Dave, flatly. "We need to know if someone didn't like him and why – what may seem like small irritations to you might have been what tipped the murderer over the edge."

She seemed to assess him for a moment; he had her there – and she knew it.

"He…" she hesitated, and then shrugged – as if to say, 'what harm could it do?'. "As school counsellor, Chris was heavily invested in the welfare and emotional well-being of the students," she said, and Dave wondered whether she was unconsciously drafting an obituary. "There are times, gentlemen, when the everyday running of a school like Fairview comes up against student welfare. That's not to say that we don't care about our students – we work hard to keep them safe and healthy. It's just that sometimes school life – like the life they will encounter when they leave the safety of these walls – is not the same thing as happiness."

Dave raised an eyebrow. It took a person with a great deal of self-possession to be able to use the phrase 'safety of these walls' less than twenty-four hours after someone had been shot and crucified inside them.

"Especially for a large group of kids from a wide range of backgrounds," Aaron guessed.

"Exactly," said Ms Blake, relieved and possibly incorrectly believing that they were on the same wavelength. "Some of these children spend their lives travelling from embassy to embassy along with their parents. Some have a great deal of contact with people of their own age and some do not – and the same goes for their schooling. There can be a vast disparity in skill levels when they arrive at Fairview, but not," she added, not without a hint of pride, "when they graduate."

'Graduate', thought Dave, picking up on the unusual turn of phrase, not 'leave'. Were students who weren't Fairview 'material' encouraged to leave before graduation?

"Sometimes Chris and I butt heads over the students," she continued. "But we're all on the same page at the end of the day – and I don't have to like the man to know that he is – was – good at his job. The students trusted him."

"All of them?" Aaron asked, bluntly.

Ms Blake eyed him for a moment, as one would a tiger.

"No, Agent Hotchner," she told him. "That would be beyond the power of any educator in existence. Now, I must contact Chris's next of kin," she said, dismissing them firmly. "I'll have Ms Cartwright – our administrator – show you to your accommodation."

They paused for a moment outside Ms Blake's door and shared a speaking look.

"Do you get the impression they called us in because they thought they could control us?" Dave asked, quietly.

"I think that's exactly what they wanted," said Aaron, covertly assessing the few people in the office of one of the most expensive and reputable schools in the United States.

He sighed ruefully and Dave nodded. That about said it all, really.

"Good to know she's got her priorities in order."

0o0

The janitor shifted from foot to foot, uneasily. He had not been expecting to find such a gruesome thing on an ordinary Saturday morning, and as he had worked with the man for more than five years, he was still badly shaken. He was portly and a little elderly, but clearly a responsible, observant sort of man.

Detective Whiteley had introduced him to Morgan and Reid as a means of convincing him to go back to his apartment. So far, he had flat out refused. Not only was this _his_ school – his kingdom, in a way – the victim had been his friend. He felt responsible.

"I opened the main door – this block's usually locked up at the weekend unless there's an event or something, but we had a delivery of stationery stuff needed shifting," he told them. "Anyway, the door wasn't locked, which I knew was wrong to start with."

"Would Chris Carpenter have had a key?" Spencer asked, frowning.

"Yeah, all the staff do – there's a master key for the classrooms and store cupboards, everyone gets one of those, and then specific things like the science store room and the gym have one or two keys that only people who regularly use them have on their keychain," the man explained. "Chris had the master key, the key to the theatre and drama store – he ran a drama club with the drama teacher. Some of the teachers lock their important records up in their desks or the filing cabinets, and they have personal keys for that. Then there's the key to their apartment, the parking garage and the main gate."

He ticked each key off on his fingers.

"When I came in, every door I checked was locked – I…" he hesitated, the present memory too horrible for words. "I didn't check the doors on the corridor where Chris was… I – I took one look and then I called it in."

"Did you see anything out of place, other than Mr Carpenter?" Morgan asked, carefully.

"Uh… yeah, now that you mention it," said the janitor, scratching his nose. "It was real dark in that hallway, even though it was bright sunshine outside. Someone must've closed all the blinds in the classrooms – we hardly ever do that, since there's never really anyone in there after dark."

"Thanks man," said Morgan, making a move to dismiss him.

"You sure there isn't anything else I can do?" he asked, almost desperately.

"Nah man," Morgan assured him. "We got this now."

"Maybe the administrator could use a hand?" Spencer suggested, guessing that the man didn't want to be alone just now. "There's a lot of law-enforcement coming in and out."

"Yeah – yeah, I'll go see if Nancy needs anything…"

He wandered away, a little vaguely. Morgan shook his head.

"That is not the way I woulda wanted to start my weekend," he mused.

"No." Spencer agreed and flicked open his phone. "Uh – hey Lynch, could you find out if the coroner found Chris Carpenter's keys on his body? Thanks."

He frowned briefly at the phone before tucking it back in his pocket.

"What?" Morgan asked, raising a quizzical brow.

"Nothing…" Spencer shrugged. "It just – it still feels weird not calling Garcia."

Morgan nodded; he slung an arm around Spencer's shoulders, the way Gideon used to at particularly harrowing crime scenes.

"You got that right, Pretty Boy."

0o0

"Whoever strung him up there was clearly an opportunist," Grace observed, examining the scaffolding bars and rope that had been lowered to the ground now they'd taken the unfortunate Mr Carpenter away. "All this was to hand." She stuck her head through the door nearest to the awful icon. "See – drama store. I bet you anything there's a couple of scaff' bars and some rope missing from in here."

"We'd better get forensics to take a look," Emily sighed. "Though they'll never be able to exclude anyone."

Grace 'hmm'ed her agreement.

"There's probably prints in there from kids who graduated years ago."

"And no way to say when they were last there," Morgan complained.

"It looked like he was working in his office," said JJ, emerging from a room a little way down the hall. "Files and papers all over."

"Ransacked?" Morgan asked her.

"No, I don't think so," said JJ after a moment's thought. "Just a messy worker. Doesn't look like anything is missing."

"So he's working late, alone," Emily proposed, walking a few paces back along the corridor. "Waiting for someone?"

"Maybe – maybe not," said JJ. "There's half a cup of coffee on his desk and it looks like he was part way through some marking."

"Signs of a struggle?"

"None – it's like he just got up and walked away."

"Now, how do you get a hard working teacher out of his office?" Emily asked, looking up and down a corridor.

"A ruse, perhaps?" Grace suggested.

"Wouldn't need to be complex – even just a noise late at night might lure him out into the corridor," JJ said. "And then – what?"

"No sign of a struggle out here, either," said Morgan.

"He was controlled quickly then," Emily nodded.

"The gun," Grace said, and Emily looked around, the barest shadow in the wall catching her eye.

She moved towards it.

"Bullet hole," she said, pressing gloved fingers into the depression. "He missed?"

All four of them peered up and down the corridor, frowning.

"He wouldn't have got this far down," Grace mused, gazing thoughtfully at the spray of blood that marked the place where the bullet had pierced his throat.

"It was a warning then – a threat."

"Looks like he got the message," said Morgan. "Hey." He greeted the forensic technician.

"Agent Morgan," the tech nodded. "You were right – all the classroom doors on this corridor are locked. No prints."

Morgan sighed.

"Thanks. Let us know what you get from the windows, okay?"

"So the UnSub locked up after himself," Emily said, surprised. "But not Carpenter's office, or the drama store…"

"His keys were on his desk," said JJ.

"The doer must have put them back," Morgan remarked.

"Not the smartest UnSub then," JJ observed.

"No," said Grace, looking up at the scaffolding. "But they think they are."


	11. Down to Business

**Essential Listening: Come Into Our Room, by Clinic**

0o0

Spencer peered closely at the death-grey, bloodless skin.

Someone had pressed the makeshift crown of thorns – which had turned out to be some very nasty barbed wire lifted from the art department – deeply into the man's forehead. There was blood on the crown, which had been carefully removed from where it had been embedded in the tangle of skin and hair, but the wounds had not bled.

 _Post Mortem,_ he thought, feeling faintly relieved on Chris Carpenter's behalf as the coroner explained the debilitating but probably unrelated disease that had ravaged the man's system for years – and would have for many more, if someone hadn't stopped his heart.

"The first bullet hit his left arm and went straight through," said the coroner, a sober, straight-laced kind of man who was unflappable even in the face of apparent crucifixion. "The second went through his throat and the third punctured a lung and ruptured his heart – that's what killed him."

Spencer nodded thoughtfully, imagining those painful, laboured breaths the poor man must have taken before that final, fatal wound. It wouldn't have taken him long to die, but those seconds must have seemed like an eternity to Chris Carpenter.

"Not what you might describe as a great shot," Grace observed, rifling through the possessions left by the forensics team. "Could be inexperience, could be torture…"

"The crown could be an element of torture, but –" he began, waving a hand at Chris Carpenter's forehead.

"Except that was Post Mortem," the coroner nodded. "But not by much. There's no bruising where his wrists and ankles were bound, but lividity suggests he was slung up pretty soon after death – see?" He pointed at the other end of the autopsy tables. "All the blood pooled in his feet."

"At least he was dead first," said Grace, sombrely. "Which is a small mercy."

The coroner nodded, covering up his charge with a heavy sigh.

"Poor bastard."

0o0o0o0

"Chris was good at his job – and great with the kids."

Piper Bonnell, the art teacher, was moving briskly about her office, which was some way from the classroom she usually taught in. She was tidying supplies and paperwork almost feverishly, channelling all her shock and grief into movement.

"He was a good friend," she said, pushing books back into their places on the bookshelves.

"Can you think of anyone that might want to hurt him – something he was having trouble with?" Emily asked.

She and Reid, fresh from the autopsy room, were keeping to the periphery of the room, out of the whirlwind of strained activity.

"No," she said at once, pushing a heap of well-dressed dreadlocks out of her face. "Every teacher has problems, Agent Prentiss, but Chris is the kind of guy that it's impossible to hate, no matter how hard you try. _Was_ the kind of guy…"

Emily frowned slightly.

"There are always exceptions," Reid offered, picking his words carefully.

Piper shot him a deep frown.

"Yes," she said, slowly. "Ms Blake isn't – _wasn't_ – overly fond of him, and there are always one or two kids who feel like he's on their case, but you got the impression that they knew he was on their side, really."

She sat down, quite suddenly, and let out a leaden breath.

"Chris would move mountains for the kids that needed him." She stared at a space about a foot in front of her, unseeing. "I just can't believe he's gone."

0o0o0o0

"He could be a pain in the ass when he wanted something done," Nancy Cartwright said, with a sad little smile.

"How do you mean?" Morgan asked, gently.

They were sitting in the administrator's pleasant, sunny lounge. A capable woman in her late fifties, she gave the impression that with the possible exception of the students, whom she kept at a tolerable distance, the whole of the practical running of the school fell to her. She had skilfully dispatched the distraught janitor to his apartment with orders to rest and recuperate, even after spending most of the day co-ordinating police, forensic and FBI movements in and out of her school.

She was proud of Fairview and tolerant of her chief charges: the teaching staff. As upset as she was about her colleague and friend, she wouldn't cry in front of anyone. For Ms Cartwright, grief was a private thing.

"He cared very deeply about what he did," she said, simply. "And he wasn't afraid to pull someone up if a student's welfare was at stake."

"And that didn't jive with everybody else?"

Nancy gave Rossi a wry smile.

"It depends on whether you think the point of a school is the education and welfare of the students, or the political and social standing of the institution," she said, very precisely.

"So Chris Carpenter and Ms Blake didn't get on," Rossi guessed, with an answering smirk.

"Not really," she told them flatly, taking a sip of coffee. "But he was one of the best counsellors around, and the students trusted him. That counted for an awful lot with their parents, too, and Ms Blake is nothing if not careful about listening to them."

"And with such influential benefactors, who would want to rock the boat?"

"I think you understand me perfectly, Agent Rossi," she said primly. "But for all that, Margaret disliked him. I can't for one moment imagine her shooting him and hoisting him up in front of the trophy cabinet – far too messy." She shook her head in a very matter of fact manner. "No, if she had killed him – and believe me, gentlemen, I don't think she would – she would have kept it as quiet as possible. We would have discovered the victim of a tragic accident instead."

Morgan watched her thoughtfully for a moment.

"Ms Blake coulda known that people might suspect her and displayed the body prominently to throw us off the scent," he suggested, subjecting her to a level stare. "A forensic counter-measure."

Nancy gave a hollow chuckle.

"What a dark and different world you gentlemen must inhabit," she said, after a moment. "No. Why kill a man when you can simply fire him? It's in our contracts not to reveal anything potentially scandalous when we leave employment here. Margaret is very careful."

Morgan nodded, accepting this.

"And this isn't a careful crime."

0o0o0o0

JJ ran practised eyes over Chris Carpenter's rooms.

They were largely orderly, but obviously lived-in. A small stack of books were in easy reach of the end of the couch, as if he had often picked them up of an evening. There were a series of medals and trophies for cycling competitions on an unobtrusive shelf near the back of the room, along with a photograph of a very muddy man grinning at the camera and hoisting the bicycle in the air.

JJ sighed. He looked easy going, animated and like he was enjoying his life. It wasn't fair. It was never fair.

"Now what did you do to make someone hate you enough to shoot you and make a mockery of your corpse?" she asked the empty room, softly.

Her phone buzzed and she picked up, glancing in mild confusion at the caller ID.

"Garcia, what are you doing?"

"Oh my God JJ, I am _so_ bored!" he friend complained.

JJ smiled, rifling through his mail.

"You got shot, really you should be resting Penelope."

"I _am_ resting. I'm lying down and everything."

"Okay, crazy lady, I believe you," she laughed, moving over to the crate of paperwork that seemed to reside in the office or home of every teacher JJ had to pick over.

"So what're you doing?"

"Rifling through some guy's life," JJ told her, "and no, I'm not telling you anything else. You're on medical leave."

"So it's got nothing to do with that counsellor who got crucified up in Massachusetts?"

Garcia sounded innocent, but not remotely contrite. JJ rolled her eyes.

"Have you been hacking your own computer system again?" she sighed. "You know Hotch made you promise not to do that."

"It's not hacking if it's your own system," Garcia told her, somewhat sniffily. "Besides, Kevin let me in."

"Penelope, you'll get him in trouble."

"I will _not_ ," she scoffed. "Besides, I'm going nuts here. I wanna help!"

JJ sighed.

"Fine, but no actual working, you hear me? Just read through the files to see if there's anything we missed."

"Captain, oh my captain!"

There was the sound of cushions being shoved aside to make room for a computer. JJ smiled. In her weeks of absence, JJ had dearly missed her mad friend.

"So what's Fairview like?" Garcia asked, as the two women made their separate searches.

"About how you'd expect," said JJ. "Expensive."

"Oh, _ew_ ," said Garcia, who was now obviously examining the more graphic parts of the file. "You hear 'crucified' and your brain totally goes there, but it's nothing compared to actually seeing it."

"Yes," said JJ, rifling through Chris Carpenter's drawers. "It wasn't a pretty sight."

"He got any family?" Garcia's voice was quiet, far from the snappy sarcasm that was her trademark.

JJ guessed she was thinking of her own parents, or of how close she had recently been to death. She shuddered, despite the warmth of the room.

"No. His Mom passed away a few years ago. It was just him."

"Oh…"

They were quiet for a while, each reflecting on the frailty of human life. JJ sat heavily on the edge of Chris Carpenter's couch, expelling the air from her cheeks in a huff. It was hard to know where to look in a case like this. The search of his office hadn't really yielded anything useful, and nor was this. She shifted her weight a little, frowning at the resulting crackle.

JJ slid her hand beneath the couch cushion, then stood up as her fingers found a plastic folder. She knelt by the sofa and pulled it out, thumbing through it thoughtfully.

"Hey Garcia, you still there?"

"Yah, whatcha got?"

"A name…" JJ frowned. Why would Carpenter have felt the need to hide this – and in such a strange place. "You got Kevin on chat?"

"Yup, hit me."

0o0o0o0

"We understand your position, Ms Blake," said Hotch, keeping his voice carefully toneless, "but we do need to speak to those students who had regular contact with Mr Carpenter."

Grace was impressed. It had been twenty minutes since they had first broached the subject of talking to the kids and Ms Blake was still obfuscating. It was bordering on the obstructive and had they been elsewhere Grace would probably have lost her temper by now. As it was, watching Hotch talk the woman into thinking this was her idea had been fascinating.

"I have the best interests of my school to think about, Agent Hotchner," she said, sounding tart for the first time.

"So do I, Ms Blake," he said, simply. "These students may be able to shed some light on Chris Carpenter's murder, and it may help them to feel like they're making a difference."

"Trauma like this is difficult to deal with at any age," Grace added, trying to be helpful. "Particularly when you're living away from your family, in a place they feel is safe."

Margaret Blake shot Grace a look which suggested that she shouldn't mention Fairview's reputation with the students' parents again. Hotch also glanced in her direction, but it wasn't a direct admonishment this time; he had been running out of steam a little with this woman and could use the fresh idea.

"This way, the students can assure their parents that Fairview, along with the FBI, is taking this situation seriously," he said, smoothly.

Ms Blake gave him a very doubtful look.

"And it may help us wrap the investigation up more quickly, which, I believe, you said would be the best for all concerned."

The principal sighed.

"They will need to be accompanied by a representative of the school at all times," she said, finally, and Grace tried not to look too happy about it.

"Of course," said Hotch, in all seriousness. "Who did you have in mind?"

"Myself," said Ms Blake, at once.

 _Quel surprise,_ thought Grace.

"And Ms Cartwright. The students know us and we are – now Mr Carpenter is no longer with us – the most senior members of staff."

"Could you give us a couple of rooms for the interviews?" Grace asked. "A familiar environment will make them feel more secure…"

She didn't miss the flicker of amusement on Hotch's face, though she was sure Ms Blake did. It wasn't their sense of security she was thinking about, but Ms Blake's.

"Naturally," said Ms Blake. "I shall make an announcement about Chris's death at dinner."

"If you could allow us to do that, Ms Blake," said Hotch, gently. "I realise this is your responsibility as Principal, but it may help us to observe the students in small groups."

"And it may help soften the blow if they're in smaller, familiar groups," Grace added, quickly.

There was a tense pause before the woman agreed, but she did, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly.

"I'll organise with the heads of year to split them up and send them in in small groups," she said, sounding weary. "Who would you like to start with?"

"The students who had the most contact with Carpenter, if we could."

"I'll see to it," she said, dismissing them with a curt nod.

Grace waited until they were in the corridor, far enough to guarantee being out of earshot, before letting out the breath she was holding.

"She's a right piece of work," she remarked, shaking her head.

Hotch nodded.

"You and Reid take the girls," he said. "Rossi and I will talk to the boys, and JJ can liaise with the rest of the staff. I'll have Morgan and Emily conduct the individual interviews."

It was Grace's turn to nod, correctly interpreting his division of labour.

"Firm, but non-threatening," she said. "Got it." She glanced behind her at the closed door of Ms Blake's office. "'No longer with us'," she scoffed, faintly disgusted. "She makes it sound like he's just moved jobs."

"She's protecting her school."

Grace subjected her boss to a pained expression.

"Don't stick up for her boss, she makes my skin crawl."

He chuckled.

0o0o0o0

Derek scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face.

All schools had their share of troubled kids, and Fairview was no different; their troubled kids were just a good deal better off than normal.

He greeted Prentiss, who was heading down the corridor from her own series of student interviews.

"Anythin'?" he asked, without much hope: his friend looked tired and annoyed.

"Nothing useful." She rolled her eyes. "Remind me next time we have to talk to teenagers, not to volunteer."

"That bad, huh?"

"Two guys spent the last half-hour staring at my chest and three girls told me I didn't wear enough make-up."

Morgan laughed.

"Priorities."

"Tch-yeah. Yours?"

"Class anarchists," he shrugged. "More concerned with not aiding and abetting our corrupt government than anythin' else. I doubt they pay enough attention to anyone around them to hate someone enough to kill them."

"Unless they're the 'oppressors'?"

"Yeah." He frowned. "Carpenter doesn't strike me that way. They were all pretty cut up about it when the others broke the news."

Prentiss nodded.

"Yeah, mine too. I guess he made them feel like he was on their side."

"Which leaves us with the staff," Morgan said thoughtfully. "And most of them seemed to respect him."

"Yeah… Hey Derek," Prentiss added, with a frown. "Do you get the impression that some of the staff want us out of here?"

"Yeah, they don't want a scandal."

"They've already got a scandal," Prentiss scoffed. "How many teachers get crucified in their own school?" He chuckled and she gave him the ghost of a smile. "No. I went to a school like this. Their first priority will always be the kids' reputations – they reflect upon their parents, who're all in the public eye."

"Their very wealthy parents," Morgan mused. That could become a problem.

"Some of these kids come from the really old families," Emily agreed, clearly thinking along the same lines.

Morgan sighed. People just didn't get it. What was more important? One lost business contract (which is what these kids seemed to represent here), or finding a murderer?

"They're gonna close ranks."


	12. Fairview's Finest

_**Apologies in advance for any errors, folks – got a super bad flu thing, so my focus is a little off! Enjoy!**_

 **Essential listening: Teenagers, My Chemical Romance**

 **0o0**

Breaking news like this was never pleasant, but Spencer could understand why Hotch was having them do it over and over. Smaller groups were much easier to observe.

It was useful, too, for observing the undercurrents of social hierarchy before the stress of realising one of their guardians had been murdered. The dynamic of the present group, for example, was fascinating: seven sixteen year old girls had come into the room looking relaxed and curious. They chatted together until Grace stood up from the desk she had been perched on.

She appeared to have simply willed them into silence, as if it was a force that had exuded out from her, a skill he wondered if she might teach him. The girls had picked up on whatever unconscious cue Grace had given them and had contrived to give good impressions of being sweet, dutiful and attentive young women while they waited for her to begin.

Spencer could make out three friendship groups in the room, though they were probably more interchangeable than that: two sets of best friends and the three girls who had placed themselves most conspicuously at the very front of the room.

Every girl in the room was taking their cues from the perfectly presented blonde in the front row, whether they were aware of it or not.

She gave the agents an impeccably polite smile, and so did all the others, as though she was a pebble dropped in a pool, the ripples marking and changing everyone they touched.

Spencer swallowed. He had only been twelve at the time, but he vividly remembered girls like that from his own High School; he had the sudden urge to make his excuses and hide in the library until she was gone. He glanced over at Grace, who was watching their audience imperturbably. Her gaze, too, had lingered upon the shark in the front row. Somehow, knowing that someone else knew what they were dealing with helped steady him.

He turned back to the girls, feeling heartened and mentally chiding himself for momentarily forgetting that he was twenty-six, a genius and employed by the FBI. He had stared down murderers, rapists, serial killers and hardened criminals; he could handle one high school shark and her cronies.

Even so, he edged a little closer to Grace.

"Good afternoon ladies," she said, in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place in an English Preparatory school in an Agatha Christie novel. "I'm sorry to interrupt your Saturday. My name is Agent Pearce and this is Doctor Reid – we're from the FBI."

A burble of excitement passed through the girls, who exchanged curious glances.

"I'm afraid there has been an incident on school property," Grace paused for a moment and Spencer guessed that she was balancing between not wanting to shatter their illusions of innocence and not wanting to draw the thing out for them. "Your school counsellor, Chris Carpenter, was found dead this morning in A Block."

The shock was palpable. It wracked through the girls, rendering them all younger than the grown up selves they had been trying to present. Three of them burst into shocked tears and were comforted by their immediate neighbours. Even the shark in the front row had gone pale, her small hand pressed delicately to her mouth.

"Now, I understand that this is all a bit of a shock, and I hate to have to compound it," Grace continued, after a sensitive interval, "but I must inform you that Mr Carpenter's death is being treated as suspicious."

Stunned questions broke out on all sides.

"What?"

"You mean – he –"

"He was murdered?"

"But – his condition!"

"Oh my God!"

"He was _murdered?_ "

"It wasn't an accident?"

"Who would want to hurt Carpenter?"

Grace quieted them with a palm.

"I know this is a difficult time for you all," she said, appearing brisk but sympathetic. "You must appreciate that since this is a-n ongoing investigation we can't tell you everything, but we may be able to answer a few of your concerns. Mr Carpenter was attacked and killed some time in the early hours of this morning."

There was a pause and one of the tearful girls from the back row spoke up, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve.

"But that means…" she baulked as they all turned to look at her, including the three in the front row. "That means the school was in lockdown," she continued, in a quiet, horrified voice. "So whoever did it…"

"Is a part of the school," the girl next to her finished, cottoning on.

As one, all seven young women turned and gaped at Spencer and Grace; the latter nodded grimly.

"That's what we currently believe," she said, and a shiver of fear passed through the room. "That being said," she added, before their shocked mutters could get out of hand. "We also believe that this is an isolated incident. Since the victim is a member of staff, we don't think – should another attack take place – that any of you will be at risk."

The statement, which was more or less true, had the desired effect. They all relaxed marginally, though not by much.

"Is there going to be a memorial?" one of the girls in the middle asked.

"I believe Ms Blake will be making a formal announcement regarding a memorial service when school resumes on Monday morning," said Grace. "In the meantime, the best thing you can all do is look out for one another. This is a horrible time for all of you, so try to go easy on people, keep people's feelings in mind and so on."

"Are you going to interrogate us?"

This question came from a dark haired West Indian girl in the front row; the shark's right hand woman, as it were. He recognised her from the photographs he had memorised earlier as Harmony de Villiers, the daughter of a multinational banker. It was unusually direct and Spencer couldn't help wonder if was a little excited by the prospect of a real murder enquiry. Kids could be such a strange mix – tearful and shocked one moment and scrambling to be in the limelight the next.

"Not entirely," he said, and regretted it when seven pairs of eyes were directed towards him. "We – we would like to speak to you all individually, but it – it won't be an interrogation."

"Pity," said the shark and twinkled at him in a disarming fashion. It made him nervous.

"Since the attack took place within the school the students are best placed to help us," Grace said, rescuing him. Scrutiny returned to his friend and Spencer almost sighed in relief. "You know the routines and rhythms of Fairview: have a think about if anything unusual has happened over the last week – particularly last night or this morning. Has anything struck you as being out of place? Has anyone been acting strangely?"

"You – uh – also know Chris Carpenter much better than we do – has his behaviour changed over the last few weeks?" Reid added. "Some of you were in his drama club – has his demeanour changed? You might have noticed something that didn't mean anything at the time, but now… anything at all."

Grace held up a hand as seven teenagers sat up and looked like they might begin talking all at once.

"Keep it to yourselves for now," she suggested. "Our colleague, Agent Prentiss, will be speaking with you individually. If you could all take a seat in the corridor outside and wait until your names are called? Thank you."

They filed out, murmuring to one another. Several of them were holding hands.

"I'm glad that's over with," Spencer muttered, when the shark was gone.

Grace nodded thoughtfully, sucking her teeth.

"That one in the front row," he ventured and she chuckled.

"Nose in a sling if ever I saw one! I mean, she's a bit of a diva and likes getting her own way," she clarified, on his obvious confusion. "Someone who'd put your nose out of joint just for fun."

"I remember girls like her," said Spencer, darkly.

"No one ever forgets them."

0o0o0o0

"I only knew Mr Carpenter through the drama club," said Harmony de Villiers, absently playing with the end of her sleek, black hair. "We were going to put on a production of _Rent_ at the end of the year – I'm playing Joanne," she added, with a self-indulgent smile.

"What kind of teacher was he?" Emily asked, feeling they were beginning to lose the purpose of the interview.

"Carpenter?" she asked. "Oh, you know, just a teacher."

She shrugged.

"He was okay, I guess. He loved drama," she looked at the table in front of her and Emily guessed that she didn't feel sad about his death. It probably hadn't fully hit her yet, and it was making her feel guilty. "He spent a lot of time with the trash."

"The trash?" Emily prompted.

"You know," said Harmony, dismissively. "The wastes of space. Kids who don't belong here."

"At Fairview?"

"Of course. This is an elite school, you know," she added, looking rather narrowly at Emily as if trying to work out where she would fit in the school's social hierarchy.

Emily stared at her for a moment. That was rather a blunt way of putting it. She wondered whether anyone ever told these students that they couldn't do or say something.

"That seems a little harsh," she offered, mentally gritting her teeth.

"Why?" Harmony asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's the truth. You haven't met them, Agent Prentiss. They're trouble."

Resisting the urge to tell Miss de Villiers that she'd actually spent the morning with them and they were all okay, as teenagers went – or possible smack the smug little smirk off her face – Emily contrived to look interested instead of disgusted.

"Like who?"

0o0

"I don't know what I'd be able to tell you," said the girl Reid had identified as a bit of a 'shark'.

Emily could see why he didn't like her. She was clearly the self-appointed queen of Fairview. Her image was carefully tailored to each situation – she had caught her in the corridor reapplying her makeup and braiding her long blonde hair to give herself a more sombre aspect for the occasion.

She was exactly the kind of girl who might make trouble for someone like Reid – and be able to get away with it. She seemed to have realised, however, that trying anything funny with a bunch of FBI agents was pushing it a bit. Hers was turning into the most straightforward interview of the day.

By her own admission, Violet Alexander hadn't had much to do with Chris Carpenter, except for a recent interview conducted as part of a school-wide, semester based welfare check.

"To your knowledge has he been acting out of character?" Emily asked.

Violet shrugged.

"He seemed a little upset on Thursday," she offered. "We – Lulu and I – went to watch Harm's rehearsal in the drama studio. He seemed a little quiet."

"He's normally loud?"

"Not loud," Violet frowned. "He's got great energy," she said, after a moment. "He jumps about all over stage, gets all the actors to do the same. But on Thursday, he just seemed – I don't know. Tired? Like he couldn't bring himself to care about it."

"And that's unusual?"

Violet nodded.

"Harm and Lulu could tell you." She frowned suddenly, remembering something. "His office hours are on a Thursday afternoon, Agent Prentiss. I wonder if someone went to talk to him."

"Like who?" Emily asked, interested.

"I'm sure I couldn't say," said Violet, looking modestly away. "Although…"

0o0

"It's just awful," said the girl, dabbing carefully at her eyes with the corner of a tissue. "How could anything so horrible happen here? You just can't imagine!"

Emily watched her, feeling her patience ebbing away. The girl, Talulah Wolfe, of the Manhattan Wolfes, had been makes similar utterances for about ten minutes and bursting into quiet and not entirely convincing tears for the last ten minutes. They had yet, she noted, managed to damage the girl's expertly applied make-up.

A natural politician, she thought.

"It must be very distressing," she said aloud, and Miss Wolfe nodded tearfully. "Do you think you could answer one or two questions, Miss Wolfe?"

The girl made a valiant effort to pull herself together, sniffing, gathering herself up and patting her dark red curls back into place.

"I think so," she said bravely.

"Have you noticed anything unusual around school?"

"Not really," Talulah said, wide eyed. "Oh, but I did see the Leech hanging around Carpenter's office on Thursday."

"The 'leech'?" Emily pressed, puzzled.

Finally, they were getting somewhere interesting.

"Oh, it's a – you know, a nickname? Affectionate, of course."

"Of course," agreed Emily, blankly.

Nice to know scholastic traditions of bullying were going strong at Fairview, she thought.

"Well, it's this girl, Odette – Odette Moss? Her parents are something in science, I think," Talulah said, with obvious disdain. "Well, poor little Odette – she's very… quiet," she said, clearly meaning 'not our sort of people'. "She doesn't… entirely fit in, if you know what I mean, Agent Prentiss?"

Emily nodded, thinking that she knew _exactly_ what the odious little toad meant.

"Well, I saw her outside Mr Carpenter's office on Thursday afternoon – about an hour before Harm's rehearsal. Do you know, I got the distinct impression that she didn't want to be seen."

The girl sniffed once, twice – and then burst into tears.

"P-poor Mr Carpenter!" she cried, into her handkerchief.

"I'm sorry, did you spend much time with Chris Carpenter?" Emily asked.

"Oh no, I barely spoke to him."

Emily smiled – or at least, bared her teeth.

"Thank you, Miss Wolfe."

0o0o0o0

"That was a waste of a day," Morgan declared, over a late dinner that the kitchens had provided.

They were eating in what was normally the Mathematics classroom, which was far enough away from the crime scene that they didn't need to worry about contamination. It was currently raining and none of them particularly wanted to face the short, but undoubtedly soggy walk to their accommodation in the guest quarters.

"Oh I don't know," said Grace, who had finished eating and was leaning on her crossed arms. "I'd say we got a pretty good picture of the kind of people who live, work and study at Fairview."

"Yeah," Emily agreed. "And I already hate almost all of them."

Hotch nodded his agreement.

"Let's run what we have so far," he suggested. "In terms of victimology, Carpenter is a power figure to the students."

"Not afraid to throw his weight around in the staffroom," Grace added.

"And the kids know he'll stick up for them," Reid offered. "Even if it means annoying other members of staff."

"Who could feel undermined," JJ agreed.

"I think we can rule out the religious angle entirely," said Grace, still roughly at table height. "There's nothing else that reflects it – it just feels like set-dressing," said Grace, still roughly at table-height. "They could have just shot him and left him where he was."

"So they did it to throw us off their scent," Morgan nodded, slowly.

"The UnSub is clearly looking to humiliate him," Rossi remarked, gesturing at the crime scene photos with his fork. "There's no remorse in displaying the body like that, it's pure mockery."

"It's a message," Hotch nodded. "Don't mess with me – look what I can do."

"The imagery is so specific, too," Reid added, frowning. He picked up the photograph, taken from the far end of the corridor, which showed Carpenter's body in all its iconic glory. "If it's not religious, could it reflect the way he stuck up for the kids no one likes?"

"Carpenter could be playing the part of a martyr in the UnSub's fantasy," Morgan suggested, stretching. "He could be a surrogate for a family member."

"This whole set up seems, I don't know… not planned out," said Emily, with a frown. "The UnSub took what he needed from the store rooms and hoisted him up to the ceiling as an afterthought."

"Yes, it's all a bit haphazard, isn't it?" Grace said, sitting up. "Like the shooting itself."

"Three shots, all from close range – and nowhere near accurate," Reid mused, then rubbed his forehead tiredly. "It's not sophisticated."

"So we're looking at the students?" JJ asked.

"Most likely," said Hotch, heavily. "Which will be increasingly difficult to do. As soon as Ms Blake realises we think one of her students is involved she'll shut us out."

"You know," said Emily, thoughtfully. "Several of my interviews did come up with the same name: Odette Moss. I got the impression from the students I spoke to that she doesn't entirely fit in here."

"I like her already," Grace remarked, making several people chuckle.

JJ however, wasn't laughing. She frowned at Emily.

"I had Kevin Lynch look into the name in that file I found in Chris Carpenter's office – Odette Moss," she said. "Joined the school a year ago… her files are sealed, of course."

She pulled out the file and added it to the pile in the middle of the table.

"I guess we should stop calling the UnSub 'he', then," said Emily, sadly.

0o0

"Odette Moss, yes," said Ms Blake, and paused.

She was obviously tired, but the light had been on in her office when Rossi and Hotch had walked past it, and they had taken the opportunity to speak to her about their new lead.

"I must remind you, gentlemen, that the reputation of this school is paramount," she said, eyeing them both with faint suspicion.

"And I must remind you," Hotch echoed, "that you may very well have a murderer among your staff and students."

Ms Blake pursed her lips and extracted a slim file from her desk. It struck Rossi as an unusual place to keep a student's file – unless Ms Blake already had a reason to suspect her.

"Odette Moss," she said, as Hotch flicked through it. "Her parents are zoologists – they're in Africa at present. She is… not particularly well-adjusted."

Rossi watched her face. There was something about the downwards turn of the woman's mouth that suggested Miss Moss was not one of Margaret Blake's favourite students.

"And she was at odds with Chris Carpenter?"

"Not that I knew," said Ms Blake. "As counsellor, Chris had a lot of contact with Odette. If I were looking for a murderer, I would start with her."

Dave caught Hotch's eye. Interesting.

"You didn't think you might mention this earlier?" he asked, barely managing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"Gentlemen," said Ms Blake, ignoring him. "There's something you should see."

0o0

"She's a quiet girl," said Ms Blake, in a tone that suggested this trait was highly suspicious. "A mediocre student, at best, but my staff tell me she's passionate about art. How they would know, given she barely speaks, I am not sure…" she added, almost to herself.

She led the two senior agents into the art room, only a few doors down from where her school counsellor had recently been suspended. The room was full of canvasses, easels and things that might generously be described as sculptures, all covered in cloths to protect them from dust and the light, ready to be examined in a few week's time.

"This is the final piece of project work for this term," Ms Blake told them, lifting a piece of cloth from a large easel at the back of the room.

It fell away to reveal three canvasses, joined at their frames by thing brass hinges, in the style of a renaissance triptych – a religious piece in three parts.

Odette Moss had poured out her bitterness and contempt for the social order of her country. Each canvas depicted a play on a biblical icon, dressed up in the accoutrements of modern status: fancy clothes, briefcases, jewels, smartphones. To the left was the Virgin Mary, clad in a red silk dress and largely ignoring the screaming infant on her lap; somehow, the artist had managed to convey the look of bored apathy on her face perfectly. To the right was Christ's ascension, where he rose above a sea of adoring city bankers and business people.

The centre was given over to the crucifixion – a suited, professional looking Christ, dying in the spotlight of a stage, a crown of barbed wire piercing his forehead.

There was a long moment of silence as each agent studied the striking images.

"I think we will need to speak to Miss Moss," said Hotch, finally.


	13. Mother Mary

**Essential listening: Palaces of Gold, Lady Maisery**

 **0o0**

Odette Moss turned out to be a strange mix of a slight girl in a stocky frame.

It was as if her bones were too big for the rest of her body – not that she was undernourished, or even unattractive. It was more that her body appeared to have hurtled through puberty and out the other side early, and was now waiting for the rest of her to catch up. In a couple of years she would be a strong, handsome, broad-shouldered woman, ready to take on the world, but for now she was sixteen, awkward and very, very wary.

Unusually so.

She hadn't said a word since Ms Blake had ushered her into the makeshift interview room; instead, she shot dark, weary glances at them from behind her long, chestnut hair. Her uniform wasn't particularly tidy, and Grace got the impression that she'd been made to change just for this interview.

A smudge of ink or paint adorned the cuff of her shirt, just past the end of her blazer. Her tie wasn't straight. Her hair fell in waves around her. There was just something haphazardly defiant about the whole picture.

Grace glanced at Morgan. They were trying to make this as informal as possible, while Hotch and Rossi lurked outside in the hall, listening in. The principal, on the other hand, didn't seem so concerned about not scaring her. In lieu of a parent or guardian, Ms Blake was sitting beside Odette, the very image of disapproval: her lips pressed into a thin white line, her arms folded in ill-concealed unfriendliness.

They were in the teachers' lounge, which was private and comfortable. Grace studied them both thoughtfully, as Morgan introduced them. There _was_ something unusual about Odette, but she was willing to reserve judgment before proclaiming the girl a flamboyant and cold-hearted killer.

"You're to answer anything these agents ask you Miss Moss," Ms Blake instructed her coldly.

The look of venom that Odette Moss sent her principal spoke volumes. Her posture altered subtly; she slumped a little more. Not because she was cowed, as Ms Blake (who looked a little satisfied at this) seemed to imagine – this was an act of defiance. Grace narrowed her eyes slightly, and watched as the slightest of frowns danced fleetingly across Morgan's brow.

The principal resumed her tight-lipped silence.

"Miss Moss –" Morgan began, but to his and Grace's surprise, he was interrupted.

"My name is Odette."

Her voice was quiet; tense. She didn't look up – in fact, she barely moved. Morgan smiled very slightly.

"Odette," he amended. "You'll have heard the sad news by now." He paused and allowed her time to respond, but she didn't. "Do you have much contact with Chris Carpenter?"

"I met with him three times a week," said Odette softly. "Sometimes more."

There was a grudging note to her voice and Ms Blake hastened to explain.

"Miss Moss is one of our more troubled students," she said sniffily, ignoring the looks of warning both Morgan and Grace were shooting her. "Chris was instructed to…" she paused. "Work with our more _difficult_ students."

Well, there goes any chance of getting any useful information out of Odette, Grace thought bitterly, only just managing to keep her face impassive.

"Did you get on?" she asked.

"He's okay," said Odette, guardedly. "He was kind."

The implication that others were not was not lost on the agents.

"You've never had any problems with him?"

"No."

Ms Blake made a noise of blatant disbelief. Grace glared at her, but Morgan didn't take his gaze off the girl, and after a moment a pair of pale green eyes flicked up at him before vanishing behind the curtain of hair.

"No," she said firmly. "I told you. Mr Carpenter's okay."

Grace glanced at Morgan. They needed to push her, but they also needed her to trust them. She would have to risk alienating Ms Blake.

"And other members of staff aren't?" she asked.

She received another flash of green for her trouble, and a derisive scoff from Ms Blake. Although Odette remained silent, the flash of green had been enough to confirm Grace's suspicions – she was hardly likely to open up in front of Ms Blake, then.

"When was the last time you spoke to Mr Carpenter?" Morgan asked.

"Thursday afternoon, after class," said Odette.

That matched the statements of the other girls, at least. So far, so good.

"That isn't one of your prescribed times," Ms Blake interrupted, sharply.

"He asked to see me."

"Why?" the principal demanded.

"He said he couldn't make it on Friday," said Odette, resentfully. "He – uh – he had a meeting he thought would overrun," she added, stumbling a little over the words.

"What did you talk about?" Morgan asked, subtly changing direction.

He hadn't missed the lie any more than Grace had.

"On Thursday?"

"Yeah."

"My parents, school stuff," she said, with a shrug. "The usual."

"Miss Moss's parents are zoologists," said Ms Blake, with something sour in her voice. She had clearly anticipated a certain amount of eminence from admitting the child of two distinguished professors to the school, and had been – in her eyes – badly disappointed by their daughter. "They spend much of the year in Africa, studying elephants."

" _Forest_ elephants," Odette corrected her, with quiet annoyance.

"They're pretty badly endangered, aren't they?" Grace asked, searching the back pockets of her mind for the scant information she could remember from _National Geographic_.

Odette peeked out at her, nodding slightly.

"They're been driven off the planet," she said, and suddenly her voice was possessed of a passion that would not have been out of place at a rally. For a moment her eyes were alive, sparkling with animation. "Between poaching and deforestation, they're right on the edge!"

"I hardly think these agents are interested, _thank_ you," Ms Blake interrupted.

Odette's lips clamped shut and all traces of liveliness were immediately extinguished.

Grace frowned, thinking that the elephants weren't the only ones being driven to the edge here.

"Your parents are away a lot, huh?" Morgan asked.

Odette nodded, fiddling with the ends of her sleeves, reluctant to speak again.

"You must miss them," he prompted her.

Another nod.

"Where do you stay in the holidays?" Grace asked, trying to find another avenue in.

"With my aunt Paula. She's got a ranch on the other side of Cooksville in Maryland – keeps horses."

"You don't get to see your parents too much?" Morgan asked again.

"No."

"That's rough."

Odette shrugged.

"I guess. They're where they need to be."

Grace watched her carefully. Those weren't the words of a bitter person.

"And you don't mind?" she suggested. "I know if _I_ was left out here…"

"Sent out here," Odette corrected her, almost sharply. "I was sent here. I grew up in the reserves with Mom and Dad."

"If I was sent out here, away from my family, I'd feel a little – I don't know – abandoned."

"Well _I_ don't!" Odette told her, fiercely.

For the first time, Grace could see the whole of her face. Her skin had been tanned a warm olive colour in the sunshine of her youth, but it looked paler somehow, as if the sunlight was leaching out of her. There was a slight flush to her cheeks, as though speaking out of turn was unusual behaviour. Whether the flush was annoyance or embarrassment, Grace wasn't sure. He chin was up; defiant. The passion in her voice lent her countenance a fierce beauty that Grace suspected the residents of Fairview House seldom encountered.

"My parents care about me, yes – and I miss them like crazy, but you can't study forest elephants remotely. They're like phantoms," Odette told them. "You have to be there all day and all night – and if Mom and Dad leave the compound, the poachers move right back in. It doesn't matter how hard the rest of the team work to keep them out, they just do. They can't leave and they wanted me to have an education."

The last part was said with a great deal of bitterness.

"And Aunt Paula's okay," she added, looking a little embarrassed now. "She's better with horses than people, but she tries hard."

 _And others don't. Message received._

"That is enough from you, young lady!" Ms Blake snapped.

Odette went a slightly darker shade of tan – pure anger now.

"I think we can take a break," said Derek, hurriedly. "Just for a little while – and then, Odette, it would help us if you could tell us if you noticed anything unusual when you spoke to Mr Carpenter on Thursday."

She gave Morgan a long look before nodding.

"Twenty minutes?" said Grace.

Ms Blake was up and out of the door in moments, leaving Odette behind.

"You can stretch your legs if you like," said Grace. "Or stay here?"

"I'll stay," said Odette, and pulled a sketch book out of her bag.

"Okay…"

She followed Morgan out into the corridor and over to where Hotch and Rossi were waiting – at a discrete distance.

"Anything?"

"She's angry," said Morgan, "but very quiet."

"The kind of kid that boils over?" Rossi asked.

"I don't know."

"I don't think so," said Grace, glancing back at the door. "I don't know. I think maybe she's the kind of kid that knuckles down until she can leave and then never looks back."

"Speaking from experience, Pearce?" Rossi twinkled at her. She smiled.

"She's definitely holding back. We need more time with her, man," Morgan said, slowly. "And alone."

"I don't think we're going to shake her chaperone," said Hotch. "There's too much at stake for the school."

Morgan shook his head.

"Man, if she _is_ the UnSub I'm surprised she didn't go for Ms Blake, first."

"You are not wrong," Grace agreed, and then turned at the sound of hurried footsteps.

"JJ?" Hotch asked.

She was walking quickly and purposefully, and they all know what her expression meant.

"There's been another murder."

0o0o0o0

The scene awaiting them in the art teacher's rooms was like something out of a horror film – not gory as such, simply disturbing on a deep human level.

Piper Bonnell, a woman who had been vital and hearty the day before (if distressed at losing a friend) had been shot like Chris Carpenter and then – also like Carpenter – her corpse had been arranged. The UnSub had wrapped her in a fine, scarlet fabric, stained crimson in places from her blood. Her body had been tied to a chair – her chair, it seemed, rolled out from behind her desk to the centre of the classroom – in an apathetic sort of sitting position, her long dreadlocks flowing down her back. She looked almost elegant, except for the blood and the gaping hole in the side of her head.

On her lap, its maw gaping and half-filled with her blood, was a life-size, childlike doll, swaddled in a dirty blanket that looked like it might have come out of a skip. The doll's sightless eyes seemed to stare out at them all, accusing: why didn't you stop this?

As before, all the blinds had been drawn in the classroom, giving the UnSub privacy, but also lowering the light levels, which was probably the intention. Someone had turned off all lights except for the strip directly above the tableau.

They stood for a moment on the threshold, transfixed by the grotesque arrangement.

The sounds of mild hysteria filtered through from further along the corridor.

"Ms Blake found her," JJ explained, tersely. "The coroner's on his way."

She slipped out to deal with the forensic units and – likely enough with all the police activity on campus – the press. Jacob Whiteley, who had spent all morning fielding phone calls from worried parents, stuck his head round the door, froze for a moment and then recoiled.

"Oh man, really?" he exclaimed. "Come on, one's enough, surely?"

Rossi grimaced.

"There are always more," he said. "You want to come talk to Ms Blake?"

"No," said Whiteley, glancing in the direction of the sobbing. "But we don't always get what we want."

Rossi nodded and the two men excused themselves.

"Someone's really going out of their way to make a point here," Grace remarked, eyeing the scene.

"Yeah," said Hotch. "And I think I know what they're trying to say."

He walked to the back of the classroom and pulled the sheet off Odette Moss's triptych. The assembled agents stared at it glumly. One by one, everyone's gaze slid back to the art teacher's corpse and her companion.

" _Man_ that's creepy," Morgan shuddered.

"I'm never going to look at a Resusci Annie the same way again," Prentiss remarked.

Grace nodded. A part of her mind that she wasn't fond of wondered whether, if you compressed its chest, Bonnell's blood would bubble out of the doll's mouth. She grimaced.

"That's an unusual angle," Grace remarked, looking at the mess someone had made of the side of the art teacher's head.

"It woulda taken time," Morgan observed. "And no one heard the shots."

"We were all on campus last night," said Hotch, glancing up at the team. "Did anyone hear anything?"

Everyone looked around and shook their heads.

"The guest accommodation is pretty far away from here," said Grace. "If it's a small calibre like last time we might not have heard anything."

"Several shots, like last time," said Prentiss. "We'll have to wait for the coroner to confirm it, but…"

Hotch nodded.

"There's not enough blood here," said Reid, suddenly. He had been looking carefully at Bonnell's corpse; now his eyes flicked over the rest of the classroom. "This has to be a secondary scene."

"She bled out," Morgan observed. "Musta left some kinda trail."

"We would have seen it if it was out in the hall," said Prentiss, frowning.

The agents fanned out, looking for any kind of disturbance. The art classroom was going to be a forensic nightmare – often technicians could spot things like spots of blood fairly easily, but in here the tiny splashes of paint on almost every surface masked them, with the exception of the pool around the murdered woman's feet.

It was Prentiss who found the first splash – she called the others over to the connecting door to the next classroom, leading through a sort of technician's cubby.

"The door's locked," she said, "but look."

They followed her pointing finger to the flash of crimson, partially obscured by the wood of the door.

All five agents crammed together and peered through the window, past the darker cubby and into the classroom beyond.

"Is that…?" Prentiss began.

Grace's heart sank.

"Looks like the multiple shot theory was right," she said, grimly. "And it explains the weird angle on the head shot."

"She was trying to get away," said Reid, in a small voice.

"The UnSub must have chased her down," Morgan observed, sadly.

They surveyed the mess of bloody foot, knee and handprints on the floor of the adjoining classroom.

"We need to get forensics in there," said Hotch, and stalked off.

0o0o0o0

Rossi watched as Detective Whiteley did a spirited job of comforting a woman he detested, and respected him for it. Whatever else Ms Blake was, right now, she was a mess. She'd lost two colleagues in two days, and this one she'd found herself. She was pale, shaking and tearful – a breakdown in composure that she was already working to get under control.

He glanced up as Agent Pearce slipped through the door; briefly meeting his eyes, she presented the Principal with a large cup of hot, sweet tea, which the woman accepted gratefully. She had found and prepared it with unusual speed and Dave had a distinct suspicion that Grace had nipped back to the guest accommodation to make sure the tea was of sufficient quality and strength for the situation. She had a funny way of viewing tea as medicinal, and he'd seen her turn her nose up at the teas on offer at several stations, Sheriff's Offices and Police Departments across the States.

He smiled slightly as she joined him, very much in the background.

"What?"

"You are so British."

With a movement so carefully concealed that he wouldn't have spotted it if he hadn't been on the receiving end, she gently elbowed him in the ribs. Both of them turned away, hiding their smiles. It wouldn't do to laugh at a time like this.

All mirth vanished when she told him, in an undertone, that they'd found the secondary scene.

"It was a bit of a horror show," she intimated, quietly. "Someone in this school has lost their minds."

"I think they're beginning to enjoy it," Dave said.

"Yes," said Pearce. "That's what worries me. It's almost as if the UnSub thinks it's funny."

"Pointing to a younger, less well-adjusted UnSub, who won't be able to stop," Rossi agreed. "Are you going to re-interview Moss?"

Grace nodded, eyeing Ms Blake.

"I'm going to ask Nancy Cartwright to sit in," she said, softly. "Ms Blake's in no state to do anything and I think she would trust her administrator to protect the school's interests."

There was something in her voice that made Dave watch her expression closely for a few seconds.

"You want to talk to Moss without her interfering?" he guessed.

Pearce nodded.

"We won't get anything out of her otherwise." She grimaced. "By the way, Hotch wants you to break it to Blake that we're going to need to search the students' rooms."

Rossi made a disgruntled sound.

 _Well_ , he thought, _I can see that going down well_.

"Someone in this school got drenched in Piper Bonnell's blood last night, and that kind of evidence is tricky to dispose of," she remarked. "Morgan volunteered to have a poke around in the incinerator room, but…"

"I'll see what I can do," he said, and Pearce made a dignified and almost unnoticeable exit. Whiteley made the barest motion to show that he'd seen her go.

Well, no time like the present…

"Ms Blake, are you up to answering a couple of questions?" Dave began, sitting down across from her.


	14. The Leech

**Essential Listening: Liar, Dar Williams**

 **0o0**

Grace watched the girl through the glass while she waited for the school administrator to join them. She didn't like to take the woman away from her work, especially when there were parents to soothe – and now the press were onto them, too – but any time spent talking to Odette Moss without Principal Blake hovering in the background like a bad-tempered hornet in a cardigan would be useful.

She was sketching something, the book turned away from the window a little; Grace could just make out a few stray lines. Alone and feeling unobserved, Odette's posture was more relaxed – though she still had a weary slump to her shoulders. As Grace watched, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, carelessly smudging pencil down one cheek.

It made Grace smile, sadly.

"She was close to Piper," said Nancy, who had appeared out of nowhere like Jacob Marley's ghost. "This will hit her hard."

Startled, Grace looked hard at the administrator: like Ms Blake, she was pale and shaken, and she had been crying, too, over the loss of a friend.

"What do you make of her?" Grace asked, nodding into the teacher's lounge.

Nancy looked at the girl for a moment, before sighing.

"A pleasant girl, which can be a bit of a problem in a school like this," she said, simply.

Grace nodded, thinking that her description had said a great deal more than she was probably contractually obliged to put into words. It never failed to astonish her how few schools were prepared to actually do anything actually useful about bullying.

"This is going to be really unpleasant," she said aloud. "Can I count on you to let me get the information I need – and be there for her when she needs it?"

"Of course."

There was a slight pause.

"Why are you focussing on her, might I ask?" the administrator asked, curiously.

"Her name came up a few times," said Grace, vaguely. "And her art coursework bears a striking similarity to the crime scenes."

Nancy Cartwright frowned, but chose to remain silent. Grace filed her reaction under 'interesting' and opened the door. Odette startled, looking around in fear like a wild bird. Her face was quickly engulfed behind her hair.

"Sorry," said Grace, moving purposefully into the room. "Didn't mean to make you jump. May I see?" she added.

Odette paused, halfway through stuffing her sketchbook and pencils out of sight in her bag. She hesitated, glanced behind Grace to Nancy Cartwright, who was closing the door, and changed her mind, holding the book out.

"Thank you," said Grace, sitting down. "Ms Blake is a little busy right now, so I asked Ms Cartwright to sit in, if that's okay?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Odette assess the administrator; her earlier tension was there, but to a lesser degree, which was what Grace had gambled on. She turned her attention to the sketchbook. Unlike the artwork produced for her school project, the contents of the book were less modernist – and less worrying. They were mostly of natural creatures: tiny birds in the trees outside classroom windows; detailed sketches of birds from photographs in books; a particularly mischievous squirrel basking in the sun on a window ledge; her fellow students.

One page was entirely made up of eyes – laughing eyes, sad eyes, happy eyes, narrowed eyes… another page consisted of different shapes of noses.

Odette clearly had an eye for expression – even the smallest of sketches seemed to leap from the pages. She had drawn each character with great affection. The bitterness of the work in the art room was a stark contrast to these sketches. Maybe, Grace reflected, these were closer to the way Odette really felt – the exploration of the natural world, rather than the bleaker, sharply tonal manufactured world she had created for her exam.

It gave her hope for the girl.

"These are beautiful," she said aloud, and meant it. Her eyes rested on a stunning watercolour of a Waxwing for a moment before she closed the book and handed it back to Odette, who blushed.

"Thank you," she said, with a hint of pride.

Grace gave her a small smile, which quickly faded.

"Are you okay to answer a few more questions?"

Odette nodded; this time, Grace noted, there was a degree of openness in her posture that hadn't been there before.

"Great. I need to run by a few things with you – we're trying to establish where everybody was the night before last."

"What time?"

"Any time after dinner," she paused and turned to Nancy Cartwright. "Dinner is about seven, yes?"

"That's correct, Agent Pearce."

"So from dinner until the next morning, if you please."

Odette bit her lip.

"I ate dinner with everybody else, then I went to the art room to work on my coursework – we have to put a portfolio together and write a short piece about each one," she explained.

"Can't you work on that in study group?" Nancy asked, gently.

"No," said Odette and then apparently fought with herself for a moment. She seemed to lose the battle, because her answer wasn't entirely honest. "I can't concentrate in there."

 _The truth, but none of the detail_ , Grace thought.

"I stayed there until the curfew," she said.

"Curfew?"

"Our students are expected to be in their beds by half-past ten," the administrator explained.

Odette nodded.

"Lights out is at eleven for the eleventh and twelfth grades," she added. "I read in bed for a little while –"

"After the lights went out?" Grace asked, carefully.

"I – uh – have a torch," Odette admitted, with an embarrassed glance at the administrator. "I got up about six and had a shower. I like to be out of the dormitory before the other girls – I mean – they take so long in the bathroom –"

Grace nodded, ignoring her slip.

"Did you go straight to sleep?"

"Yes, actually," she said, and frowned. "Normally I'm awake for longer, but on Thursdays we have sport first thing and it was soccer practice – I'd been yawning all day."

"Did you hear anything unusual?"

"No – uh – maybe – I don't know." She hesitated and chewed her lower lip for a moment. "I thought I heard the showers – and one of the doors go – but I must have been dreaming. I turned over to see, but all the lights were off."

"And the other girls were all in bed?"

"Yeah – but we share the showers with the other dorm. There's four of us to a room and eight to a bathroom. There's another set of dorms across from us, and their bathroom's right up against ours – it could have been someone in there."

"At about what time was this?" Grace asked, making a note of it.

"Uh – I don't know… I can't see the clock without turning a light on and I didn't want to wake anyone up, so – early morning I think. The safety lights were out in the hall, and it was pretty quiet. I think I probably dreamed it."

"The safety lights all go out at one a.m.," said Nancy, helpfully. "It's partly to help the younger students sleep, and partly so we don't injure ourselves on patrols."

"How bright are they?" Grace asked, interested.

"Not very," Nancy admitted. "I've walked into things more than once."

"It's really spooky at night," Odette agreed. "Sort of a grey light, like something out of a horror movie."

Nancy nodded.

 _Just the right kind of light to let you slip about almost unnoticed,_ Grace mused. _Or make just enough noise to lure someone out of their office… or commit a crime without having to turn the lights on._

"And all of the girls in your dormitory were where they ought to be?" Grace asked.

"Yeah," said Odette, with absolute certainty. "Two of them snore, and Sarah's between me and the window, so I can see her pretty easily."

"And they were there when you got up for your shower?"

"Yes."

"Anything seem out of place?"

"In a dormitory with four teenage girls?" Odette asked, with a hint of amusement. "There's stuff everywhere – mine included. You probably wouldn't notice if a tornado came through!"

Grace chuckled.

"I was just the same," she admitted. "Clothes and books everywhere."

Odette smiled, properly for a moment, and Grace thought it suited her. Then she remembered why she was there.

"Agent Pearce," she said, quietly, her face falling. "How did Mr Carpenter die?"

"How do you think he died?" Grace asked, carefully.

"You and the other agent – the doctor – you said he was k-killed and it was suspicious," she replied, stumbling a little over the words. "And you're from the FBI, and you wouldn't be asking all these questions if it was an accident – and I heard Lucy Dowler telling Sarah he was m-murdered."

Grace nodded, her face carefully blank.

"I'm afraid so, Odette."

"Oh God," she gaped, aghast.

It seemed, for a moment, as if she were about to cry, but she shook her head as if denying herself the luxury.

"What I said before – about him being kind to me – he was. He was kind to everyone." She shook her head again. "I can't believe it."

Grace watched her carefully while Nancy Cartwright got her a glass of water. Her grief seemed genuine enough, but that was a tricky emotion, and could be all too easy to fake.

"Can I just check," she asked, when Odette had taken a sip of the water. "You said you went to see him on Thursday – remind me what you talked about?"

She caught the evasive motion of the girl's eyes. Odette took another sip, giving herself time to think.

"The usual stuff," she said, vaguely. "Schoolwork, mostly."

"What about it?"

"It's – uh – it's getting nearer to our submission deadlines in a couple of subjects," she lied. "He wanted to make sure I was coping okay."

Grace nodded, pretending to accept that at face value.

"Thanks." She made a couple more notes and then looked back at Odette. "Did anything seem off to you, during the meeting?"

Odette shook her head, looking troubled.

 _So that's a lie, too_ , Grace thought. _What are you hiding?_

"Nothing at all?"

"Well, like what?" the girl asked.

"Like – was there anything in Mr Carpenter's office that you saw that seemed out of place?"

"No."

"Did he seem stressed or upset to you?"

Odette hesitated just long enough for Grace to read the truth in her face; she shook her head.

"Okay. When you left – did you see anyone hanging around his office?"

"No," said Odette. "There was no-one around. It was about four by then, and he was heading to his drama rehearsal – they're putting a show on at the end of the semester," she explained, in an off-hand manner that suggested she had little interest in it. "He asked me to work on painting the sets when it got closer to the show, but I wasn't sure I wanted to."

"Why?" Grace asked, watching her.

Odette shrugged.

"It's not really my thing."

"Not detailed enough?" Grace asked, thinking of the depth of expression on the birds in Odette's sketchbook.

"Something like that."

"Why couldn't he meet with you on Friday?"

"I told you, he had a staff meeting," said Odette, beginning to sound impatient.

"There aren't any staff meetings on Fridays," said Nancy, slowly.

Grace raised an eyebrow at Odette, who seemed to panic for a moment.

"That's what he told me."

"Why would he lie?" Grace asked.

"I don't know," she said, sullenly.

Grace closed her notebook and folded her hands over it.

"Alright, Odette," she said. "I'm going to need the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth," she said, almost petulantly. Her eyes were fixed on Nancy Cartwright's knees, as if silently pleading for her help.

"Some of it, yes, but not all of it."

Odette's pale green eyes flicked up to her face, surprised.

"Ms Cartwright," said Grace, her eyes not leaving Odette's for a moment. "Am I right in saying that nothing said in the next five minutes will ever leave this room?"

"You have my word, Agent Pearce."

Odette stared between them for a moment.

"Not even – not even Blake?" she said, in a small voice.

"Not even Ms Blake," said Nancy, firmly.

Odette took a gulp of breath.

"Okay, we talked about – about my letters."

"Your letters?" Grace prompted.

"To my family – I've not heard from them in months – and I keep writing. I asked Ms Blake about it and she told me that there just weren't any."

"And you didn't believe her?" asked Grace, as Nancy made a startled tutting noise.

"No – she told me off for asking, said I was being insubordinate."

Nancy huffed again. Clearly, this was not behaviour she was prepared to tolerate in her Principal.

"When was this?" Grace asked.

"Months ago now – around Christmas," Odette explained. "I had to stay here because Aunt Paula was sick – that was the last I heard from any of them."

"Have you spoken to Mr Carpenter about this before?"

"A couple of times, but this time it made him really angry."

"I'll bet it did," said Nancy. "I handle the mail, Miss Moss, and I have seen letters addressed to you."

Odette stared at the administrator, stunned.

"Come to me in future and I'll see that you get them – I can't imagine what's been happening," she said, though Grace suspected she now had a fair idea. "Once the FBI have finished here I'll go through the office to see where the others have got to – and if you have anything you want to send, you can bring it directly to me."

"Th-thank you," said Odette, clearly surprised. Even through her grief at losing her one ally in Fairview, a startled sort of hope had kindled behind her eyes.

"What did Mr Carpenter say he was going to do?" Grace asked, bringing them back to task.

"He didn't, exactly," said Odette. "He just said he was going to fix it for me."

 _And who would he have taken his concerns to, I wonder?_

"Have you been having problems with the other students?" Grace asked, bluntly.

Odette looked momentarily fearful, but Nancy Cartwright had given her word – already things were marginally better.

"Yes," she said, her voice harsh in the still room.

"Who?"

This last admission seemed to have been too much for her, however. She shook her head and looked at her knees.

Grace looked away, thoughtfully, and decided to take a chance.

"The ones that call you 'the Leech'?" she asked, gently.

The hurt was clear on the girl's face, appalled that someone who had only been in the school for a day had already heard _that_ nickname. Grace nodded, and continued before Odette felt compelled to speak:

"Have you spoken to Mr Carpenter about them?"

Odette made a small motion with her head that might have been a nod.

"Right. Thank you for being honest," she said. "I'm afraid there are a couple more questions. What did you do after dinner last night?"

The girl sat up a little from her cowed position, puzzled.

"The same as the night before," she said.

"Exactly the same?"

"Yeah – well, I couldn't concentrate on my work what with Mr Carpenter and everything, so I left the art rooms earlier and went to the library instead," she said, sounding confused. "I returned a book and checked out a new one for biology, and then I went to bed."

"Did you hear the showers again?"

Odette went to shake her head, but then frowned and nodded.

"Yes – yeah, I did… How did you know?"

"While you were in the art room, did you see anyone around – other students, Mrs Bonnell?"

Odette was getting flustered now.

"No – wait, Mrs Bonnell was there for about an hour, working in the back," she said. "She was preparing a still life for the ninth graders. She said goodnight a little while before I gave up and went to the library."

"About what time – do you remember?"

"Uh… it must have been about half past eight," she said; her face changed suddenly and thrust her hand into her backpack. Grace watched her micro-expressions as she extracted a small piece of paper. "You get a ticket from the computer when you take out a book," she explained, and then passed it to Grace. "Here."

Grace looked the ticket over – sure enough, the time stamp at the bottom was 20:47. Just about the right amount of time for someone to get to the library from the art department and find the book they needed.

"Can I keep this?" Grace asked, and thanked her before she could argue. "Was anyone around when you got back to the dorm?"

"Yes," said Odette, a suspicious tone beginning to creep into her voice. "Sarah and Lucy were there, playing cards."

Grace sat back, satisfied – for the moment. Odette had given a creditable account of herself, but there was nothing to say she hadn't waited until her dorm-mates were asleep and crept out.

"Tell me about your coursework," she said, changing tack.

"My – my coursework?" Odette asked, surprised.

"The one you're putting a portfolio together for."

"Uh… okay," she said, with a baffled glance at Nancy Cartwright. "I based it on a medieval triptych – you know, those three-part paintings you get in churches? The topic was 'corporate America', so I made the icons more modern – bankers, socialites, that sort of thing."

"I think I've seen it," said Grace. "Dark settings, bright splashes of colour on the subjects?"

"Yes Ma'am, that's mine," said Odette, with academic pride.

"The crucifixion, Mary and the holy infant, and Christ's ascension."

"Right," said Odette. "It's way darker than the stuff I normally do, but Mrs Bonnell told us that was the kind of thing the examiners wanted – to show we had depth in our work. I – I'm actually quite proud of the way it turned out. What did you think of it?" she asked, almost shyly.

Grace hesitated and chose her next words carefully.

"It's very well-executed," she said, after a moment. "And certainly very striking."

Odette looked quite pleased with that.

"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you, Odette," she said.

Odette froze, her expression suddenly guarded, waiting for the inevitable fall.

"You asked how Mr Carpenter died," she began, as delicately as she could. "It seems he was crucified."

Odette's eyes became two near-perfect circles. Her hands rose involuntarily to her mouth.

"He was suspended at the end of the corridor by the drama studio, with a crown of thorns on his head and a stage light on him," she said, brutally. Odette seemed to sway for a moment. "Which was also rather striking."

"Oh my God," said Odette, weakly. "Oh my God! Like my painting…"

"Like your painting," Grace agreed. "The similarity was difficult to miss."

Odette's expression changed again as shock became suspicion and anger.

"And you think _I_ …?" she gasped. "That's why you're talking to me, isn't it? Oh my God!"

Grace let her stew for a few moments, brushing her qualms about the girl's feelings aside. They had to be sure.

"That's not all," she said, with a meaningful glance at Nancy Cartwright. "There's been another death."

It looked a bit like Odette's heart might have stopped entirely. She held herself very still.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Piper Bonnell was found murdered this morning."

Grace hadn't even got to the end of the sentence before Odette began to shake; it was as if a lightning bolt had gone through her. She burst into stunned, frightened tears. The administrator was by her side in an instant, one arm around her shoulders, muttering soothing things to the girl.

Years of practice had taught Grace when to push it and when not to, and she waited patiently for the storm to subside.

"I'm sorry," she said again, when Odette was calmer. "I understand you were close?"

Odette swallowed and nodded.

"Art – it's my favourite subject – Mrs Bonnell – she let me sit in the art room and w-work," she sobbed.

"Okay, we don't have to do this all now," said Grace, who wasn't without feeling.

Nancy Cartwright gave her a grateful nod.

She had been about to suggest that they take a break when the door to the staff lounge slammed open, banging against the far wall.

Grace sprang to her feet, her instinct putting her between Odette and Nancy and whatever was coming through the door, one hand on the grip of her gun.

Ms Blake filled the doorway, incandescent with rage.

"How dare you speak to one of my students without proper representation!" she shrieked, leaning rather closer into Grace's face than she was happy with.

"Ms Blake –"

"It's a disgrace! I will be putting in a complaint direct to your superior!" She yelled.

Grace felt her Met training kick in. She squared her shoulders and stood her ground.

"Ms Blake –"

"The word of a twisted little bitch will not be held against this school! This is all your fault, Moss!" she added, looking around Grace.

Blake hesitated for a moment when she caught sight of her administrator – looking scandalised, but it was over quickly. She rounded on Odette.

"Anyone can fake tears, my dear – do you honestly think you can fool us all? You might be able to trick these buffoons from the FBI, but –"

" _That is quite enough_ ," said Grace, in a ringing voice that seemed to take Ms Blake by the shoulders and shake her slightly. "As you can see, Miss Moss has been answering questions supported by Ms Cartwright, who _is_ a representative of your school. _May I ask you to take a step back please, madam?_ "

The Principal did, which seemed to come as much of a surprise to her as anyone. Behind her, Agent Rossi and Detective Whiteley appeared, a little out of breath. She must have run all the way when she'd figured out what they were up to.

"I'd thank you not to intimidate our witness any further, Ms Blake," said Grace, in a much more normal voice, still with a note of command.

"Witness?" the woman exclaimed, shocked. "You mean suspect!"

"You think _I_ did it?" Odette gasped, in a voice much higher than usual. She stared around at Nancy and Grace, at her Principal, and at the two agents in the doorway, horrified.

Grace turned to find the girl on her feet, shaking with fear, grief and astonishment.

"Of course you di–" Ms Blake began, hotly, but Grace interrupted.

"I don't."

"I think we need to have a little chat," said Rossi, as Odette stared at Grace.

Ms Blake didn't seem able to form sentences anymore, staring hollowly at Grace, so Rossi took one of her arms and gently escorted her out of the room, Detective Whiteley discretely taking the other arm. It had been cheating, she supposed, to use magic to make her back down, but sometimes there wasn't a great deal of choice. Using the Voice had got her out of stickier situations in the past.

"Don't take any notice of her, Odette." Nancy managed, after a moment. "She's under a lot of stress."

 _I wonder just what it is she'd afraid we'll uncover_ , Grace wondered. _'This is all your fault…'_

"She found Mrs Bonnell," said Grace, watching Odette watch her. "It was a bit of a shock."

Odette sank into her chair, emotionally exhausted.

"You _don't_ think I did it?" she asked, after a moment.

"No," said Grace, with certainty.

"Why?"

"You strike me as a poisoner," she said, off-hand enough to make the girl chuckle wetly. "No, I don't think you'd kill anyone," she said. "You keep your head down as best you can and weather all the abuse. You get it out of your system through some of your art and you keep going."

Odette watched her carefully.

"Thank you," she said, after a moment.

"Ms Cartwright, could I ask you to look after Odette, please?"

"Yes," said the older woman simply, still appalled at her colleague's behaviour.

Grace turned to go.

"Agent Pearce?"

"Yes, Odette?"

"You said Mr Carpenter was – like my painting," she sniffed. "How was – I mean – Mrs Bonnell –?"

Grace looked at the ground for a moment. Really, the girl had been through enough today, but she'd find out one way or the other.

"Mother Mary."


	15. Love Letter

**Essential Listening: Hands Clean, Alanis Morissette**

 **0o0**

Agent Rossi and Detective Whiteley left the room with much more dignity than they had entered it. Together, they walked briskly out into the brittle spring sunlight and halted under the eaves of the Principal's office, just out of sight. She would be watching them leave, they knew, and a moment's pause would be welcome after the hour they'd spent with her.

"She really wants us to arrest that kid," said Whiteley, who was having the education of a lifetime on this case.

"Yeah," said Rossi, thoughtfully. "Which is interesting considering she wanted us out of the school and away from her precious charges less than twenty-four hours ago."

"You think she's trying to send us off on a wild goose chase?"

"Oh, undoubtedly. She doesn't like Odette Moss, and from what Morgan and Pearce told me, the feeling is entirely mutual." He shook his head. "No, I think she wants us out of here and is throwing the first person she could lay her hands and a flimsy connection on under the bus."

He huffed with frustration, expelling a great stream of steam into the chilly air.

"I guess Moss's parents aren't important enough to worry about – or too far away to complain in time to save her."

Whiteley shook his head in disgust.

"And all the while there's a murderer running around who's already shown us he's prepared to kill again."

"She," said Rossi.

"She?" Whiteley stared at him.

"Come on," said Rossi, the corner of his mouth turning up at the end. "We'll go through the profile and I'll convince you."

He led the young detective out from under the eaves of the main building and across the lawn to the maths classroom that had become a sort of unofficial, ignoring the feeling of Principal Blake's eyes on the back of his head.

It was never fun, investigating murder, but sometimes, irritating someone like Blake was pretty damn satisfying.

0o0o0o0

"So she's hell bent on it being Odette?" Prentiss asked.

The team had collected in their temporary base of operations, where they'd made a sort of island of desks to spread out over. Most of them were pacing about the classroom or leaning with their hands on the desks; it had been a long day of secondary interviews, and they were all glad of the opportunity to stretch their legs and backs.

"I don't see it," said Morgan, after careful consideration. "She's quiet, angry, well-balanced despite bein' picked on – that's nothin' like these crimes."

"How do you mean?" asked Whiteley.

"Look at the placement of the bodies," said Rossi, waving a hand in the direction of the photos of Chris Carpenter and Piper Bonnell (freshly printed by the crime scene tech's). "They're theatrical – flamboyant. This UnSub is showing off. As far down the social scale Odette is, she doesn't need to kill people to show off – she's got her art."

"She's also timid," said Morgan. "The length of time this took to stage would take audacity – nerves of steel."

"Okay, but she was close to both Chris Carpenter and Piper Bonnell," he pointed out, playing Devil's Advocate.

"Yes," said Hotch, "which makes it less likely to be her. They represented the only two people prepared to act on her behalf – without them, she's got nothing."

Grace frowned.

"That might be it, you know," she said, and everyone turned to her. "She's at centre of all of this, whether she wants to be or not."

"The counsellor that was on her side, the art teacher she spent the most time with – it feels like it's an attack on _her_ ," Prentiss remarked.

"I still don't think she told us everything," said Grace, who had already related the disappearing mail problem to her team. "But I don't think she's involved."

"We need to know how far her problems go," Morgan said.

"Often kids who're victims of bullying have a downturn in their grades," Reid suggested.

Hotch nodded, thoughtfully, and got out his phone. It rang before he could dial out, taking them all by surprise.

"Lynch," he said. "I'm putting you on speaker – I need you to get the transcripts of a student named Odette Moss."

"I – uh – I don't have access to those."

Around the room, everyone smiled. He was getting better, but there really was no one like Garcia.

"Get them – any way you can," said Hotch.

"Uh…" said Lynch, probably considering the legality of it, but JJ interrupted.

"Do you still have Garcia on chat?" she asked.

"Yeah," the tech' replied, sounding embarrassed.

"She can get you in in under five minutes," she said, and several people chuckled.

"JJ, Penelope's supposed to be restin'," Morgan complained, amused.

"She _is_ resting," JJ told him, mimicking their friend's voice. "She's 'lying down and everything'."

"Why did you call?" Prentiss asked, interested.

"Oh! There's something you guys really need to see – I just pulled it from Chris Carpenter's computer. Does someone have access to email?"

"Yeah," said Hotch, logging into the communal laptop.

There was a small electronic delivery noise, followed by an odd sort of sound from Hotch.

"You gotta be kidding me," Rossi exclaimed, reading over his shoulder.

"I'm running diagnostic on the hard drive," said Lynch. "But I figured that was something you'd want to see…"

"Good grief," said Grace, as all of them crowded around the screen.

 _Odette,_

 _Hey gorgeous, meet me in the theatre after light's out where no-one will see – the usual time. Can't wait to undress you again – I'll be waiting. Don't tell anyone in your click, this is our little secret!_

 _The door will be open – it'll be sick!_

 _Love you!_

 _Chris xx_

"Do you think that was what she was holding back?" JJ asked, after a moment.

"I shudder to think," said Grace.

"I don't know," Reid frowned. "The language is off."

"Off how?" Whiteley asked, with a grimace.

"It's immature – look at the wording: 'sick', 'click' – they're the kind of things a teenager would write, rather than an adult," he explained, pointing at the screen. "The structure is odd, too – as if someone was trying to make something sound more mysterious 'where no one will see', 'the usual time'."

"It's like someone's put it together out of a poorly written novel," said Prentiss, turning up her nose.

"Someone is going to a lot of trouble to keep Odette firmly in the frame," said Morgan.

"I think you're right." Lynch's voice was muffled a little by some furious typing. "The modify date is eleven p.m. on Saturday –"

"Carpenter couldn't have written it, that's twenty-two hours after he died," Whiteley exclaimed. "My guys had gone home by that time – someone must have gone into his office after they locked up."

"Someone with a key…" Grace mused.

"Ms Blake?" Rossi speculated.

"Maybe – she's really workin' on Odette right now," said Morgan.

"Hang on," said Prentiss, suddenly. "We know the UnSub used Carpenter's keys after they shot him, and the door between the art rooms was locked, despite clearly being open – what if they kept Bonnell's keys?"

"Did we find them?" Hotch asked, as several people scrambled for reports.

"No…" said Jacob Whiteley after a moment. "I'll have them take the art rooms apart – and her rooms."

He hurried off to make a call.

"Another thing to look out for when we search the students' rooms," mused Rossi.

"We're gonna need a warrant – I can't see Blake lettin' us search anywhere except Odette's dormitory," Morgan grumbled.

"I'll make a call," said Rossi, and evaporated.

"We need to keep this away from the press, JJ," said Hotch, gesturing towards the computer.

"Oh, _yeah_ ," she nodded fervently.

"Uh – guys?" Lynch asked, probably feeling a little forgotten in all the chaos.

"What else have you got?" Hotch asked, surprised.

"It looks like there was an earlier version of the file – I'll work on recovering it."

"Good work," said Hotch. "Call us when you have something."

"Thanks!"

Grace smiled slightly at how surprised he sounded.

Hotch frowned at the photos from the second crime scene.

"What?" Grace asked, after a moment.

"Can you see an average sixteen-year-old girl having the strength to winch an athletic adult male all the way up to the ceiling?" he asked.

"Desperation?" Reid suggested, and then frowned. None of this seemed like an act of desperation – except maybe the initial shooting.

"Sports star?" Prentiss proposed.

"No way," said JJ. "I ran cross country at high school – we trained every day and I couldn't have done it."

 _I could have_ , Grace thought. _But not by any normal means – and there's no evidence of magic here at all_.

"So we're back to lookin' at a guy?" Morgan asked.

"No," Reid reminded him. "It can't be – the letter –"

"Has to be a teenage girl, right," the older agent agreed, glancing up as Rossi came back. "So – what? We're lookin' at more than one?"

There was a pause. It made a horrible kind of sense.

"That's what's been bugging me about the scene," said Rossi, suddenly. "Look at it: the shooting is sloppy, disorganised, but the scene setting, the posing of the body – that's more organised."

"Particularly in the second scene," said Grace, re-examining the photos. "The Rescusi Annie, the red satin, the chair – they were all to hand, but the cloth that was wrapped around the doll wasn't. It must have come out of a skip or something."

"Are there any on campus?"

"There's one outside the incinerator," said Morgan, which gave them all pause. "I guess we know they were there, then."

"Right, Odette Moss is clearly the focus of all this," said Hotch, briskly. "Dave, see if you can get in touch with her parents – see if Lynch can get you a satellite connection. What did the DA say?"

"Her secretary's writing out a warrant for us, but the DA's out of state and can't sign it until tomorrow."

"Bloody weekend cases," Grace grumbled, earning herself a nudge in the ribs from Emily.

"Great," Hotch sighed. "Morgan, Prentiss, start re-interviewing the students –"

"Concentrate on the eleventh graders," Grace suggested. "They're the ones who have the most contact with Odette – and she remembered hearing the showers going early in the morning on both nights."

"I'll see what I can find out about the eleventh grader's backgrounds from my friends in the minivans out front," JJ offered.

"Pearce, see if you can find out where they got a gun from – I doubt there's many places in Massachusetts that would sell a gun to a sixteen year old."

"Right boss."

"Reid, you and I are going to have another talk with Principal Blake –"

His phone rang again, interrupting their departure.

"Hotchner – right. Okay, thanks."

They waited for him to hang up again.

"Garcia helped Lynch get into Odette's records," he explained. "Straight 'A's until halfway through her first semester here – her transcripts for her other schools are exemplary."

"She's keeping her head down," said Reid, sadly. "Grades are almost always the first thing to suffer."

"So we're looking for someone who is arrogant, familiar with the school, intelligent, a flair for the dramatic…" Rossi began, and Prentiss concluded:

"And has it in for Odette Moss."

0o0o0o0

The Principal had quickly agreed to a search of Odette's dormitory, as they had rather suspected she might. They'd conducted their search while the kids were having a memorial for their fallen teachers, watched over by JJ and Hotch, who were standing sentry at each door – showing their respect and casting practiced eyes over the tearful congregation.

Grace had been volunteered to the task, since she had spent the most time with Odette and had developed something of a rapport. Reid helped, with Whiteley ostensibly 'guarding' Odette, as the Principal had indelicately put it. Mostly, though, she sat on the floor in the centre of the room and watched, numbly, while the two agents took her things apart as thoroughly and as gently as they could. The Detective did his best to engage her in conversation, and the two of them discussed Forest elephants at length, but there was a sense that Odette had simply given up trying to comprehend anything anymore. Emotionally exhausted, she was letting it all wash over her now.

They helped her put it all back in order, but there really wasn't any way to lessen the impact of having someone search through your possessions.

"You know," Grace remarked, when they had left her to her own devices, "I half expected to find the gun or the keys in there somewhere – or at least some bloody clothes."

"To incriminate her?" Whiteley asked. "You think they'd do that?"

"Uh – they seem to be aiming specifically for her," Reid mused. "And Ms Blake agreed to the search so quickly – it – uh – it was almost as if she was expecting us to find something."

"But we didn't…"

"No," said Grace, sighing glumly. "Which means that whoever it is isn't finished with the gun yet."

Detective Whiteley scrubbed his hands across his face.

"I don't think I could cope with the pace of your lives," he said, making Grace laugh and Reid peer at him curiously, as if he couldn't comprehend another pace of living.

"Did you – uh – get anywhere with local gun shops?" he asked, as they came out into the main foyer.

"No, total dead-end," Grace complained. "There are only two in about a thirty minute drive and neither of them have sold a gun of the right calibre."

"Well, if I were a student here I wouldn't buy one at a gun shop anyway," Whiteley reflected. "That's for the 'proles'."

The two agents gazed at him for a moment.

"Where would _you_ get a gun, if you were a student here?" Grace asked.

"From home," he said, simply. "These families go way back – they're big into hunting and gun clubs."

Grace shared a look of astonishment with Spencer. They hadn't even considered that.

"The students were all at home two weeks ago, for the first break of the semester," said Grace, hollowly. "Jesus."

The three of them looked up as the doors to the hall opened and the students of Fairview House began streaming out, murmuring to one another in subdued tones.

"It could be any one of them," said Reid, softly.

0o0o0o0

"Any luck with her parents?" Aaron asked, when they got back to their adopted classroom.

The kitchens had sent up dinner, which the students and staff would be tucking into downstairs, and made an interesting change from takeout. The agents applied themselves with relative gusto – though their job made for hungry work, some days it had a way of reducing the appetite. Detective Whiteley barely picked at his.

"They haven't heard from her since October," said Dave, between mouthfuls of lasagne. "They were pretty worried about her, but they figured she was too busy being a teenager to wrote them back. They're catching the next flight out – but it won't be for a couple of days."

"They can't come soon enough," said Prentiss, suppressing a yawn. "I got the impression from the girls in the eleventh grade that she's the favourite for the murderer even among the students."

"Yeah," said Morgan. "The guys weren't much better. According to at least one of them she's 'a strange duck'."

"Did you ask about her?" Aaron frowned.

"Nuh-uh, they all told me about how odd she was, and how much time she spent with Carpenter and Bonnell."

"Same with the girls," Prentiss agreed, frowning.

"Almost as if they'd been prepped."

At the end of the table, both Reid and Pearce rolled their eyes. Aaron knew from some of the things Reid had told him that he'd been bullied at school, being the natural target some six years younger than the rest of his class, and he had a strong fellow feeling for other natural targets. Now, Aaron wondered whether the same might have been true of Pearce. Had her second sight manifested while she was still at school? He could well imagine her fellow students thinking she was more than a little ghoulish at times.

"I am just about done with this place," Morgan huffed, leaning back and crossing his arms.

"Well, it's not done with us."

Everybody looked up to see JJ stalk in, her face stained scarlet, her fists clenched, knuckles tight and white. She looked more angry than Aaron had ever seen her; he was momentarily taken aback. He groaned inwardly and got to his feet, ready to face whatever new crisis was upon them.

"Someone leaked the 'love' letter to the press," said JJ, striding across to the window.

She drew the blinds to give them all a good view of the front gates of the school. Journalists were swarming around, enthusiastically reporting to cameras.

"It's all over the news," she grimaced, thin-lipped. "They're calling for an arrest."


	16. Convenience

**Essential listening: Conspiracy, Paramore**

 **0o0**

"I can't _believe_ you ran with this."

Several of the less experienced journalists who had clustered around the FBI's media liaison, hoping for a soundbite, took a few steps back. One or two looked mildly chastened, but most were old hands, knew or knew of JJ, and were utterly recalcitrant.

"Oh come on, Agent Jareau," the nearest one complained. "The school's locked up tighter than Fort Knox – we're gonna run with everything we can get."

The speaker, who had dealt with JJ before, looked very surprised when the usually bubbly, easy-going liaison turned a gaze on him that could have stripped paint.

"You're going to run with nothing except what I release to you as of right now," she informed them, sternly. "Because you're playing with the lives of the staff and students in that school," she said fiercely, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder.

"Then you think they might strike again?" asked one of the younger reporters hopefully.

JJ glared at her.

"I shall ignore the note of glee in your voice," she said. "From this point on, you need to run anything new you're going to print, publish or broadcast past me."

There was an audible groan.

"So the FBI are controlling the press, now?"

"Until we have this killer in custody, yes," said JJ. "People's lives depend on it."

A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd then, and she knew that she had them.

"Can we quote you on that?" one of them asked, and several people chuckled.

"No, but I will make a short statement if you want to get your cameras ready."

She gave them three minutes – just enough time for their camera and sound people to scramble forward. They bristled before her now, ready for her to salvage as much as she could of two people's callously shredded reputations.

"I can confirm that the FBI is investigating two suspicious deaths at Fairview House School," she said, in the voice she used for official statements: calm, clear and betraying nothing. "Since the families of the deceased have now been informed I can tell you that the deceased are two members of staff: the school counsellor, Chris Carpenter and the head of the art department, Piper Bonnell. Based on victimology, at present we do not believe that any students are at risk," she continued, though that wasn't strictly true.

"Earlier today, a letter was leaked to the press," she said, unable to express, out here, just how angry that made her. "This letter – which was purportedly written by Chris Carpenter to an underage student – is a forgery."

The journalists shifted – half excited, half uneasy.

"How can you be sure?" one of them called out, his voice carrying above the heads of his peers.

"Because it was written nearly twenty-four hours after his death," JJ replied, and watched various members of the press change colour – either out of sheer delight, or sheer horror, depending on how they'd run the original story and how much they cared about the outcome.

"We would like to impress upon people the importance for patience in this matter and reassure parents of the students in this school that every possible effort is being made to protect their children."

She gave the details of a dedicated helpline they could direct their concerns at, which would be manned by those members of the BAU who could charm and disarm various members of the American elite who would undoubtedly be freaking out around about now.

"Do you have any idea who the murderer is?"

JJ kept her face blank, though she would dearly have liked to roll her eyes. They never changed, the press, and were ever voracious.

"Our investigation is ongoing. Thank you."

They followed her as far as the gate, where several off Detective Whiteley's officers were helping the janitor maintain crowd control. She paused and picked out an old hand.

"Dan – a word?"

The chosen member of the press passed through the barrier and immediately apologised.

"Was that thing really fake?" he asked. "Jesus – I woulda never run with it if I'd known. You know me, Agent Jareau – it was just too much of a temptation."

"That was probably the idea," she said, frankly. "Dan, I need a favour."

She'd expected him to bargain, but he simply shook his head.

"I know what you're going to ask, but I can't tell you who the source is, because I don't know. It came through as an email to our office – some made up name: scandal fairviewhouse . edu." He shrugged. "I'm sorry Agent Jareau."

"Thanks Dan – at least we know it came from inside the school." Her brow creased suddenly. "Hey, you wouldn't know what time that was, would you?"

"I can look it up," he said, pulling out a piece of paper – the printout of the email.

"20:17 – thanks. Can I hang onto this?"

0o0o0o0

"It was after dinner," said JJ, brandishing the print-out. "Right under our noses!"

She tutted, flinging the sheet of A4 down on the table.

"Damn," Morgan complained. "Nearly every student here has access to their own computer."

"They'd have to be on the school network," said Prentiss, pointing out the email address. "Can't have been a smart phone or laptop. Hey," she said, looking up. "Don't they have access to the computer labs in the evening?"

"Study groups, homework clubs, that sort of thing," Grace agreed – she and Detective Whiteley had been doing some poking around earlier in the day. "There are timetabled slots on the noticeboard outside each computer rooms – split up year by year."

This time, it was Reid who called Lynch. He was still at his post, late as it was, which was another mark in the tech's favour. Garcia's work ethic was catching.

"Hey, I'm going to put you on speaker," he said, and tossed his phone onto the pile of paperwork on the table.

"We need you to find out where an email originated from," said JJ.

"Inside the school?" Lynch asked, without preamble. They heard him stifle a yawn. "Sure – gimme the addresses it was sent to and from."

"scandal fairviewhouse . edu to dan peterson cambridgeecho . com," JJ read aloud.

"Hmm, okay – it'll be quicker for me to hack into the computer logs in the school," said Lynch, after a moment's thought. "We know it came from an account in the school, and someone had to be able to make themselves a new account name – that leaves a trail… what time was it sent?"

"20:17 tonight," said Reid.

"Okay – most of the accounts were dormant at that time," said Lynch, after a few moments' typing. "We're looking at mostly eleventh and twelfth grade accounts – none of the staff were online then at all."

"Blake had them all in a staff meetin'," Morgan recalled.

"Okay, I got it – Joseph Mitchell, twelfth grade."

"We profiled the UnSub as female," said Prentiss, doubtfully.

"Could be an accomplice," Reid suggested. "He may not even know what he was doing."

"Yeah – when I was seventeen and a cute girl asked for my help, I didn't ask too many questions," Morgan chuckled.

"The 'pretty girl equation'?" Pearce asked, grinning, and Morgan launched a bean at her.

"There's always the possibility that he left his account open and someone took advantage," Lynch suggested, from the depths of Quantico. "People don't pay any attention to security – particularly kids."

"Morgan, go fetch," said Rossi, with a sardonic smile.

"I'll come too," said Whiteley. "I want a word with that kid."

"Hey guys, before you go –" called Lynch, before anyone could hang up on him.

Hotch glanced after Morgan and Whiteley and decided he could catch them up later.

"Go on," he said.

"I've been working on recovering the original of that letter," Lynch told them. "It's about ten seconds off completing…"

There was a pause, punctuated by the electronic glingle that signified the end of a computer process.

"Yeah, I got it – you got the laptop?"

Prentiss was already there and had her email open.

"Go ahead, Kevin."

"Woah," he said, and sent the email. "Geez, I can see why someone didn't want you to see _this_."

0o0o0o0

"He didn't have a clue," said Detective Whiteley walking back to their adopted room.

"Yeah," Morgan mused. "Of all the people we've interviewed I think he's got the least to do with anything."

They had caught up with the unfortunate Mitchell in the school drama studio, where the two men had proceeded to put the fear of God into him. He was a twelfth grader only two semesters away from graduating and hoping to study at the New York Film Academy in the fall. The threat of losing such a bright future had made him voluble in his desire to help them.

Yes, he had been in the computer rooms the evening before, but he'd left for the assembly in the hall at half-past seven. He must have forgotten to log out. Yes, he had witnesses – his whole year was there. He'd sat with his two best friends – who, yes, could both vouch him.

After a lecture on computer security, they'd left the poor kid trembling and sworn to secrecy.

"Hey," said Whiteley, as they turned a corner and almost ran into Hotch and Rossi. "What's going…" he trailed off as the two senior agents barrelled past them, matching expressions of tight-lipped fury on their faces.

Morgan made to follow them, but Hotch waved him off.

"C'mon," he said to Whiteley and the two men took the stairs two at a time. The rest of the team looked up as they came in, all of them in attitudes of anger.

"What happened?" Morgan asked, surveying his colleagues' faces.

Wordlessly, Agent Prentiss got up from her seat, gesturing at the screen. Whiteley watched, puzzled, as Morgan sat down; his face quickly clouded and became stormy. Whiteley met Doctor Reid's eyes.

"Chris Carpenter had been about to go to the school governors about Odette not receiving her letters," the young agent explained, his voice quiet and clipped with anger. "So not only did Principal Blake know about the problems Odette was having, she lied about knowing what had upset Carpenter. She's known for months – she's been covering it up."

"Jesus," Whiteley exclaimed. "No wonder she was so intent on being present for Odette's interviews."

"And all the other eleventh graders," Prentiss said, suddenly. "Hotch talked her out of it, but she wanted to be there for every single one."

"Just the kids from the eleventh grade?" JJ asked.

"Yes," said Prentiss, slowly, meeting her friend's gaze. "Almost exclusively the girls, too."

"The girls who call Odette 'the Leech'," Agent Pearce continued, her back to the room. "And who may have been using the showers late last night."

0o0o0o0

"I really don't see why it would be important," said Ms Blake, haughtily.

"Why wouldn't it be important?" Dave contested, hotly. "Apart from the fact that you've clearly allowed this bullying to continue for six months, unchecked, you concealed a possible motive in the murder of two people."

"I hardly think anyone would be bothered about that girl," she said, with great distaste.

The shocks of the day had not been kind on Margaret Blake, whose inner control was now a little dishevelled. She had decided that Odette Moss was expendable, and was no longer prepared to pretend that young woman was anything other than a grain of salt in her otherwise perfect world.

"I think her parents might disagree with you," Aaron snapped, shortly.

Dave glanced at his friend. It took a lot to piss Aaron off enough to make him verbally short with people – particularly a person whose co-operation might be necessary. This one, however, was an especially unpleasant woman.

"Chris Carpenter was 'bothered' about her," said Dave, incisively. "So was Piper Bonnell – she was helping her prepare a portfolio for art school."

Blake turned her eyes on him, trying to convey with a look how insignificant she thought he was.

"I think it's clear that that girl –" She wouldn't even say her name – not now, not when she'd decided Odette had to go. "That girl has lost her mind and is taking out those few people who could break through her objectionable personality."

Dave rocked back on his feet. When someone has made their minds up about something to such a ludicrous degree, beyond all sanity and reason, there is really no point trying to talk to them anymore.

"Odette Moss does not fit the profile of our UnSub," said Aaron, harshly. "It would be useful if you could stop trying to focus our attention on her and start being straight with us."

"I don't know what you mean, Agent Hotchner, and I'm not sure I like your tone," the Principal retorted.

"Whether you like my tone or not is irrelevant," Aaron told her, sternly. "Two people have been murdered in your school, Ms Blake, and you are with-holding evidence. I could charge you right now with obstructing the investigation – and harassment of a minor. I suggest you take some time to think about your options."

He spun on his highly polished shoes and left the woman gaping at his retreating back.

Dave put on one of his favourite, slightly dangerous smiles.

"Shall we say, eight a.m. sharp?"

0o0o0o0

They had retired for the evening, most of them exhausted from a full day of running around or interviewing people. Even Reid, who was usually marginally more of an insomniac than Grace, had turned out the light in his room and was presumably sleeping soundly.

Hotch wasn't, but that was just Hotch. He seemed to function on about two hours of sleep most days, like a Duracell bunny in a suit.

Grace had slipped out of the accommodation and into the silent, moonlit grounds. It was nearly one a.m. and the world was frosty and still. Sheer perfection.

She paused under the branches of a frost-rimed tree and inhaled the crisp, frosty air. Despite the case, on this night, in this moment, it was worth being alive. Grace smiled, closing her eyes and leaning against the cold bark.

She stayed like that for some time, soaking up the cold and getting herself properly tired, and had been about to make a move back inside when she heard the distinct crunch of light footsteps on frozen grass.

Grace's eyes flew open, the fingers of her right hand flexing, ready to cast, but there was no one in sight. Realising she was partially obscured by the trunk of the tree she turned and peered past it, trying to maintain her inconspicuousness. A little way away was the wall that divided the living accommodation from the rest of the grounds – extra security for the students. Soft but determined scraping noises were emanating from it.

Grace watched, pulling her gun out and up, ready for anything.

It was a few minutes before a large bag dropped over the wall and into the flowerbed below. A shape appeared at the top of the wall and paused for a moment. Grace watched, mesmerised, as the escaping teenager carefully lowered themselves as far as they could while still hanging onto the top of the wall, swore, and fell the rest of the way to the ground. It wasn't much of a drop, but it winded them.

She put her gun away, walking as silently as she could across the frozen lawn and came to a halt behind the student, who was pretty well bundled up in her over-large coat. She folded her arms and waited.

"Good evening," she said, as Odette turned around.

"Ahh!" she shrieked, letting out a soft scream as she stepped back, fell over her bag and toppled backwards onto the frozen ground.


	17. The Great Escape

**Essential Listening: Out the Window, Bowling for Soup**

 **0o0**

There was a moment where Grace was sure someone would stick their head out of a window and ask what the hell was going on, particularly given the way sound seemed to travel like the peal of a bell on a frosty night, but nothing happened. She glanced around, wondering whether this was why no one had heard the shootings of the previous two evenings, or the victims' screams.

She turned her attention back to Odette, who was gaping up at her from behind a leafless rose-bush.

"I'm not sure running away in the middle of a murder investigation is the best idea," she said, affably. "Particularly as half the school seems to have decided you did it."

"I didn't kill anyone!" Odette hissed, going quickly from shocked to annoyed; Grace took this as a good sign. "You said so yourself."

"So I did," said Grace, and held out her hand. "Still, I'd rather you weren't out on your own just now."

Odette peered at the proffered hand for a moment, indecisively, then took it and pulled herself upright.

"Also, there _is_ a murderer running around the school," Grace pointed out, as the girl brushed the soil off her clothes.

Odette's face darkened considerably.

"I know, that's why I'm getting out of there," she said, bluntly. "I can see where things are going – first Mr Carpenter and then Mrs Bonnell. I have a horrible feeling I might be next."

Grace narrowed her eyes for a moment, surveying the girl: she was tense, but in a determined sort of way. She was more afraid that Grace might make her go back inside the school than she was of being caught. Odette was eyeing her up, too. Assessing her – trying to work out what might happen next.

"Where were you heading, out of interest?" Grace asked, eventually.

"My Aunt Paula's," Odette told her. "It's not too far."

"It's four hours' drive away, from what I remember," said Grace, who had looked it up.

"Yeah, well…" Odette shrugged. "I can hitch."

"No, Missy, you can't," said Grace firmly. "I chase serial killers for a living – all those horror stories you hear about hitchhiking? Quite a few of them are true."

Odette stared at her, a hint of fear about her face now.

"No, if you're running off, do it by bus for Gods' sake and save us all the Amber Alert."

"I'm sixteen," she said, almost defiantly.

It was Grace's turn to shrug.

"You're still a minor," she pointed out. "And as such, there are people who have responsibility for you…"

Both women glanced at the school buildings, like grand, hulking shadows in the night.

"Not that they're doing a particularly good job of it right now," she added, after a moment. "Look," she said, and Odette's pale green eyes flashed back to her face. "I don't think you should be in there at the minute either, but you sure as hell shouldn't be anywhere else."

Odette was plainly about to object, but Grace put up a hand.

"So come and stay in the guest accommodation tonight, where we can keep an eye on you. Then, when the investigation's over, you can talk to your parents about how awful this place is, or run off to your Aunt Paula's using visible public transport. Okay?"

She had the feeling she had rather taken the girl by surprise. Odette wavered for a moment, and then agreed.

"Okay," she nodded. "As long as I don't have to go back in there."

She jerked her head back towards the dormitories.

"As you pointed out," Grace said, smiling slightly. "You're sixteen. I think that's rather up to you."

She waited for Odette to shoulder her enormous back-pack – she had clearly not been intending to return to Fairview, ever – and led her inside the guest accommodation. Just inside the door, Grace pressed a finger to her lips, nodding at the doors to the rooms, silently enjoining her to be quiet. On the first floor landing, light spilled out from under Hotch's door.

Sometimes, Grace reflected, the insomnia of law enforcement agents (particularly senior ones) was a very good thing.

She knocked, softly, and assembled her face into something she hoped looked innocent before he opened it, puzzled and armed. Hotch's eyes travelled from Grace, who was armed, but wearing her pyjamas under her coat, to Odette, who was dressed for overnight travel. He motioned them inside.

"What is going on?" he asked, when he'd closed the door behind them.

Odette stared around her, embarrassed and painfully shy now she'd decided to let someone else handle her safety for the night.

"Caught someone failing to escape in the grounds," Grace said, and explained Odette's reluctance to stay at Fairview.

Hotch looked the girl over.

"Well, I can't say I blame you," he said, gently.

Odette looked up at him, her face full of unaccustomed hope.

"But it does mean we have to decide what to do with you."

"She can stay with me tonight," Grace suggested.

Hotch gave her a look that she recognised from her old boss's repertoire of 'What have you done _this_ time?' expressions.

"We need to call social services," he pointed out, but Grace shook her head, stubbornly.

"She's sixteen, and we're Federal Agents. If she doesn't ask us to, we don't have to call anyone."

Hotch sighed. He couldn't really argue with that, since it was true. He sent a questioning look at Odette, who drew herself up a little.

"I'd like to stay here with Agent Pearce, please," she said, in a small, fierce voice that almost made the Senior Agent smile.

"Alright," he said, after a moment. "At least this way we can keep an eye on you, I suppose."

He gave Grace something that might have been a glare if he hadn't been a little relieved to see Odette out of the main building himself.

"Thanks Hotch," said Grace, with feeling.

She ushered Odette back out into the hall and Hotch caught her arm.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

"She blatantly didn't do it," Grace murmured back and motioned Odette along the corridor.

"True. Agent Pearce," he called after them, softly. "No late night parties, okay?"

She span around, not quite fast enough to catch the grin she'd heard in his voice. The door was already closed.

0o0

"Well, at least we've found a use for all these bloody pillows," said Grace, as Odette emerged from the bathroom.

The teenager giggled: Grace had made a makeshift bed from all the random cushions and pillows that had been stacked on her bed, and a spare quilt she'd found in the cupboard. It looked like something out of the Arabian nights, but it was better than sleeping out of doors in early spring.

"I'd offer you the bed, but…" Grace shrugged. "Well, I don't really want to. Sorry!"

The blunt honesty made Odette laugh again, as Grace had hoped it might. The poor kid had been through enough in the last few days, even without six months of vicious bullying from her tormentors.

"It's fine," she said, gratefully. "It's great."

Grace locked the door while Odette burrowed into the bed, like some kind of small mammal from the plains, and climbed gratefully into her own, warm bed. It had been extremely cold outside, and Odette's little adventure had tired her out. After being outside in Massachusetts in winter, the heavy eiderdown felt luxurious. She was already drowsy, even before she'd settled herself down.

"I'm going to turn the light out now, okay?"

"'kay."

There were a few minutes of silence, in which Grace more or less dozed off. She came too as if she was falling, the way you sometimes do in dreams, and realised that Odette had spoken.

"Agent Pearce?" she said again, from under her borrowed quilt.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

0o0o0o0

There was a fair amount of confusion at breakfast – the little kitchen on the ground floor of the guest accommodation quickly filled up with bleary-eyed agents, who weren't quite sure how to take the appearance of a very quiet escapee teenager in their midst – at least until they'd had their coffee.

Odette accepted a couple of slices of toast, content to be left alone for a little while, and stayed close to Grace, whom she had begun to trust. Anyone who was prepared to bend a few of the rules and stand up to a boss like Agent Hotchner – who seemed impossibly stern and formidable to her – was a friend worth having. It had been a long time since anyone other than Mr Carpenter or Mrs Bonnell had stuck up for her.

She frowned into her breakfast. Although she had been deeply shocked by their murders, she was aware that she hadn't even begun to grieve for them yet. That would come later, she suspected, when she was no longer under threat. It made her feel a little ashamed, that her future should seem more important to her at that very moment than the loss of her two friends, but she supposed that was just how human hearts worked. Or her heart, at least.

The agents, she had gathered from their hushed conversations, studied human behaviour, and none of them seemed to find her all that strange. Emotions could be so confusing sometimes, in the way they crowded in on a person.

She had grown used to a world of predictable cruelty. Now, for the first time in months she had no idea what was going to happen – in many ways, it was out of her hands entirely – but she wasn't afraid. Agent Pearce had made it clear that she was prepared to be quite obstinate on Odette's behalf, and that – and Agent Hotchner's acceptance of her presence at one o'clock in the morning – had heartened her.

Feeling decidedly philosophical, Odette munched her toast and spied on the Federal agents from under her hair. They were an odd bunch, she decided, not at all what she had expected from the FBI. She recognised Agent Prentiss from her initial interview – the one where she'd been asked if there was anything unusual going on. She was currently discussing something about a letter with a fierce looking blonde woman, who kept sending her curious glances.

Another agent, the tall, handsome one who had been at her second interview, was on his cell phone, possibly to his girlfriend, given the way he was talking. Every so often, Agent Prentiss and her friend joined in with the conversation. Odette got the impression that they all knew her pretty well – and that she was sick, or something. Maybe she was another agent, too.

Agent Pearce and Doctor Reid, who had been present when Pearce had announced Mr Carpenter's death, appeared to be arguing about the various merits of tea over coffee. It seemed to be an old argument, and one which they were both enjoying tremendously. It occurred to Odette that there was a strange kind of chemistry between the two of them – almost as if they were flirting. It was quite funny, really, Odette decided. Neither of them seemed to know about it, if they were.

The two senior agents she had seen lurking outside the teacher's lounge when she was being interviewed were sitting a little apart from the others, speaking in low voices and watching their team-mates with a sort of detached amusement. It was an oddly domestic scene. Plainly, this small group of people operated more like a family than a team.

They all looked up at seven a.m. when a person that Odette recognised as a detective walked in, his gait and expression pitched somewhere between the professional outsider and the adopted team-member. He did a comic double-take when he saw Odette and she lowered her gaze, trying not to laugh.

"Um… Good morning?" he said, suddenly uncertain.

Agent Morgan hung up and handed the detective a coffee, motioning him towards the table.

"Morning," said Agent Pearce, cheerily, taking the seat beside Odette and enthusiastically spreading peanut butter on her toast.

Dr Reid followed her, as if he were caught in her own, personal gravity. He handed Odette a cup of tea – a compromise, she suspected, from the look of amusement on Agent Pearce's face.

"Thank you," she said, in a small voice.

The doctor smiled, and she decided that she understood why Agent Pearce enjoyed winding him up. He had the kind of smile that made you believe there was nothing wrong in the world. Idly, toying with her cup, she wondered how that ever could have survived, working with what they did.

"Miss Moss decided to abscond from the school in the night," Aaron Hotchner explained, and suddenly everyone seemed to be paying a lot more attention than Odette had thought they were. "So she spent the evening here, under Pearce's watchful eye."

"My watchful eye was asleep," said Agent Pearce, through a mouthful of toast. "But to be fair, the door was locked and I don't think that window's opened in years."

The blonde woman chuckled.

"Why last night?" Agent Prentiss asked, with an encouraging smile.

Odette went a little pink, realising that eight pairs of eyes were trained on her.

"It was then or never," she said, in a quiet voice that seemed to carry further than she really wanted it too, in the suddenly silent kitchen. "I – I could see the way things were going. First Mr Carpenter, then Mrs Bonnell… They're the only people who ever stuck up for me."

"You figured you were next, huh?" Agent Morgan asked, and Odette felt her blush deepen.

She wondered suddenly how anyone managed to talk to someone so cute without glowing. Perhaps it was something people learned when they got older. She nodded, averting her eyes.

"I don't think that'll be a problem, from now on," said the older agent. There was a sparkle of mischief in his eyes that made Odette a little wary, but he was smiling at her, so she smiled back.

"Was anybody out of bed last night?" Doctorr Reid asked. "Uh – other than you, I mean."

"No."

She had made quite sure that all three of the other girls in her dorm were fast asleep before making her exit. The time they'd given her while everyone had been in assembly had been put to good use – she had been packed and ready to go before lights out. Then it had simply been a matter of not falling asleep and not waking anyone up.

"No one creeping about the corridors?" the blonde woman beside Agent Prentiss asked.

Odette shook her head.

"Well, that has to be a good sign," she said.

There was a round of general agreement, and people started to pay more attention to their breakfast again – except for Detective Whiteley, who was frowning at Odette.

"What?" she asked, when she couldn't stand it any longer.

"I was just thinking we should get in touch with social services," he said, with a glance at Agent Hotchner.

"No," she said, with certainty. "I'm sixteen – I can take care of myself."

"I'm not sayin' you can't," he said, with a smile. "But there should be someone here – your Aunt, maybe?"

Odette thought about it for a moment and then shook her head.

"Aunt Paula's not great around people," she said. "Agent Pearce said I had to stay here until the investigation's over, but then I'll head to the ranch. I don't want to freak her out."

The older agent with the mischievous eyes laughed and nodded at Agent Pearce.

"I can see why you like her!" he said, and Agent Pearce smiled.

"She reminds me of me."

Odette blushed again, feeling quite flattered.

"Odette, I spoke to your Mom and Dad yesterday," the older agent told her, and her heart leapt. "They're on their way – might even be here today. Your Aunt Paula's pickin' them up from the airport when they land."

"See," said Agent Pearce, ruffling her hair in a sisterly sort of way. "Running away can be really over-rated."

Odette nodded mutely, afraid if she spoke she might burst from happiness – or just burst into tears. She bit her lip, unable to stop the grin that was breaking out on her face.

"Oh," said the blonde woman. "I should probably warn you…" She pulled out a sheet of paper, and Odette was suddenly worried that this had all been a cruel joke, but the woman gave her an embarrassed sort of smile. "Someone wrote this and someone sent it to the press – maybe the same someone. We don't know yet."

She handed her a print out of an email, which Odette read and promptly gagged.

"Ew!" she exclaimed. "No way!"

"They know it was a fake now," Agent Prentiss explained. "But you might get some questions about it if they catch up with you."

"Not if I can help it," said the blonde woman, firmly.

"JJ's our media liaison," Agent Pearce told her, as JJ went to get another cup of coffee. "The press are putty in her hands."

"They are not," JJ retorted, lazily. "But they know when yanking my chain's a bad idea."

"You scare the pants off them," said Agent Pearce, flatly.

JJ made to deny it, paused and then accepted the statement with grace, making her team-mates chuckle.

Agent Hotchner looked like he was about to speak, but the sound of someone opening the front door interrupted him before he could. They all looked up, peering past one another into the hall, where Ms Cartwright was closing the door. She walked towards them slowly, like someone in a dream. Her pale face and shaking hands told the agents all they needed to know. Suddenly, everyone was on their feet – including Odette.

Between them, they got Ms Cartwright sitting down and steadied; several already had phones or notebooks out, ready for the new onslaught of problems. Odette busied herself with the kettle, thinking that the administrator looked like she could really do with a hot drink.

"It's Margaret," the woman said, weakly. "We had a meeting at seven a.m., but she didn't show up, so I went to look for her in her – in her office…" She held a trembling hand to her mouth.


	18. Flowers for Margaret

**Essential Listening: Play with Fire, Cobra Verde**

 **0o0**

Odette stared at Ms Cartwright, wide-eyed, kettle full of hot water in one hand. Agent Hotchner despatched Prentiss, the detective and the cute agent with the barest motion of his eyes and they hurried away. Odette could see them hurrying across the lawn, through the window of the kitchen.

"She's dead," said the administrator, though everyone had already guessed it.

It was somehow worse to hear it out loud.

"They'd dressed her office up – like Chris and Piper."

She was talking to her hands now, and Odette found she couldn't tear her eyes away. She'd always seemed like such a strong – if distant – person. It was truly unsettling to see the unflappable secretary so distraught.

"All those empty chairs…" she said, in hollow voice.

Agent Pearce and Doctor Reid shared a look, glanced at Agent Hotchner and then they, too, took off.

"Alright Nancy, we'll need to talk to you about this, but we can do it later," said Aaron Hotchner. "JJ?"

"I need to get out to the press before…" she trailed off, almost apologetically.

"We need to see that scene," said the other agent, in an undertone.

"I know, Dave, but –" Agent Hotchner said, and glanced at the administrator.

Odette was already halfway across the kitchen before she'd properly made her mind up. She pushed a cup of hot, sweet tea into Ms Cartwright's hands. The woman didn't even look up.

"I'll stay with her," she said. "I know first aid – she's going into shock, right?"

It seemed to Odette that the agents were communicating a great deal, only using their eyes.

"We don't have a choice," said Agent Hotchner, after a moment. "Thank you, Odette – we'll call for an ambulance. Keep her warm."

"Got it."

"JJ –"

"Already gone," she said, and left the room with a turn of speed that Odette never would have imagined possible from a woman in heels and a pencil skirt.

"Rossi, you're with me."

Odette followed them as far as the door and then rushed up the stairs to retrieve the blanket she'd borrowed from Agent Pearce, taking them two at a time. Ms Cartwright was just where she left her when she bounded back into the kitchen. Odette wrapped the quilt around the older woman's shoulders and pulled up a chair – near enough to support her if she needed it, far enough away not to crowd her. Ms Cartwright looked up at her, shakily.

"Thank you," she said, in a small voice.

"It's okay," said Odette.

After all, she had looked after her the day before; now it was herturn.

0o0o0o0

"That is unnecessarily eerie," Pearce declared, when she and Reid stopped in the doorway.

Derek turned and grimaced. Principal Blake had been suspended from the ceiling by her wrist, which had been tied to the light fitting, and supported by several poles, which looked like microphone stands. Her head had been tied to her arm so she was facing the doorway, her eyelids held open with sticky tape.

Facing her were row upon row of empty seats, brought in from another part of the school. A silent audience. Derek could well imagine why Ms Cartwright would have freaked out. Hell, _he_ would have freaked out, taken unawares.

"It's the third part of the triptych," Reid observed, his expression grim. "Christ's ascension before the adoring host…"

His young friend glanced at the chairs.

"What've you got?" Pearce asked, moving further into the room, careful not to disturb anything.

"Her mouth's taped too," said Prentiss, somewhat muffled. "Only two shots this time."

"They're getting better," Derek observed, darkly.

She was behind the corpse, rummaging in the woman's desk.

"She had the key to her desk in her hand – she was holding onto it so tightly it cut into her flesh," she said. "I figured it might be important."

Reid tore his eyes from the empty chairs and joined Prentiss at the Principal's desk. Pearce came over, and stood beside Derek.

"That's a heck of a lot of blood," she said, after a moment.

A pool of it had collected underneath the corpse, like a macabre shadow cast by a non-existent spotlight.

"Yeah," Derek agreed. "Looks like they shot her in the chair and then –" He gestured up at the ceiling. "You definitely couldn't do that alone. There's gotta be more than one UnSub involved."

"The sticky tape's new," Grace observed. "There wasn't any on the painting."

"I guess they wanted to add dramatic flair," said Prentiss, who was still busily breaking into the desk. "This way the eyes really follow you around the room."

"I guess they couldn't resist tapin' her mouth shut while they were there," Derek mused. Something about that had been bothering him. "Like they were makin' a point."

"Silencing her, maybe?" Pearce asked, her eyes following the invisible thread of his thoughts.

"She had an appointment with the administrator first-thing," said Reid, examining the desk from underneath. "Here…"

"And another with Hotch and Rossi at eight," Derek added. He met Pearce's blue, steely gaze. "I kinda get the impression they didn't want her talkin' to anybody."

With a grunt, Prentiss got the desk drawer open; she would have fallen over from the effort, but Reid steadied her, staring intently inside.

"It's the gun," he said, astonished, and looked up at the Principal. "I thought you said she was gripping the key… If they put the gun in here and then put the key in her hand -"

"She was," said Derek, and felt his mouth fall open in dismay. "They did."

"Oh God," said Pearce. "She was still alive when they strung her up there."

The four agents stared up at the Principal's sightless eyes in horrified silence. The spell was broken by the arrival of the coroner.

"So she _was_ protecting somebody," said Prentiss.

"And they want to point the finger at Odette," said Reid, extracting a file from the drawer. "Look – it's her student transcript."

"Man that's clumsy," Derek frowned, taking the proffered file. "Hey – bloody fingerprint."

"It's like something out of Famous Five," said Pearce darkly, as he handed it to a forensic technician. "Like kids playing a game."

"Well, at least we know Odette couldn't have done it," said Prentiss, stripping off her gloves.

"Do we?" Derek asked, playing Devil's Advocate. "No offence, Pearce, but you were asleep. She coulda snuck out."

"Not without waking me up." Pearce shook her head, sounding certain. "That door creaks like buggery."

"Okay, but she could easily have come in here and shot the Principal before making her escape."

Pearce pulled a face. Derek smiled slightly. She wanted so badly to believe in Odette's innocence. He tried to imagine her at that age and had to stop himself laughing aloud.

"Okay, so we need a time of death before we can rule her out entirely," said Pearce.

They looked hopefully at the coroner, who shrugged.

"Don't look at me," he said, pushing his spectacles up his nose. "There's a variable temperature in buildings like this – I'd rather do a full complement of tests before I tell you anything."

"Her watch stopped just before three a.m.," said Reid, carefully examining the woman's wrist.

"Analog," said Prentiss, unhappily. "The time could be changed."

Pearce looked around for another straw to cling to and found one on the late Principal's desk.

"Looks like she was working," she said, and gave the mouse a nudge. The screen winked on. "It's hibernated – I bet it timed out."

She called Lynch while the coroner and his assistants tried to figure out how to get the unfortunate Ms Blake down from the ceiling without disturbing any potential evidence.

"Hey Lynch, listen, I need you to hack into the Principal's computer for me." There was a pause where Derek imagined Kevin Lynch considering his professional future. "No, she won't mind," Pearce assured him, glancing up at the macabre thing in the middle of the room. "She's dead. Sure, I can wait."

They waited for his response as Reid and Prentiss started working out the trajectory of the bullets as best they could.

"Cool," Pearce said, as the screen magically logged itself in. "Can you get into the activity log please? I need to know the last time she was working…"

"They must have moved everything in the whole goddamn room," Prentiss grumbled, trying to get a clear shot without disturbing any of the chairs.

"Forensic countermeasure," Reid observed.

"Pretty damn effective one!"

"2:53 a.m.? Magic. You're a star."

"That's Odette in the clear, then," said Derek, as she hung up.

"Maybe we should keep up the illusion that she's a suspect for the moment," said Pearce thoughtfully, tapping the phone against her chin. "Make them think they've won…"

0o0o0o0

As before, no one seemed to have seen or heard anything, but the interviews were becoming more specific now: more targeted. The team had found themselves back in their makeshift incident room and – since her whereabouts were probably being monitored – Odette was with them. Once her patient had been dispatched to bed by two friendly paramedics the girl had tucked her legs underneath her in a chair in the corner and started sketching.

It was obviously a form of stress relief for her, and given the crime scene photos she was studiously avoiding looking at, JJ couldn't blame her.

"Between you and me, I'm glad she climbed out of her window last night," she said to Hotch as they flipped through the notes they had already collected.

He nodded, watching the girl work out of the corner of his eye.

"It could have been her Ms Cartwright found this morning."

"What's she drawing?" JJ asked, keeping her eyes low.

"Us, I think."

"I wish I hadn't asked," she complained. "Now I'm going to feel like she's watching me all day."

"You know," said Rossi, who had been surveying the crime scene photos once more. "I can't help thinking the Principal's office wasn't where they were intending to stage this."

"How so?" Grace asked, peering past his shoulder.

"The light fitting, the tape – that's all in the office, opportunist," he remarked.

"Yeah, they used things that were in the room," Morgan agreed. "Like the other murders."

"No," said Rossi. "The chairs, the microphone stands – they were all from the school hall. That's a long way to carry a bunch of equipment in the dead of night."

"What are you saying?" Hotch asked, joining him.

"What if they intended to stage this somewhere else?"

"The hall?" Emily guessed.

"And lure their victim over there."

"So why didn't they?" Grace asked.

"Maybe they had to change their plans," Rossi suggested.

"The person they really wanted to kill wasn't there," Spencer realised, following Rossi's eyes to the girl in the corner. "So they had to improvise."

"The Principal was a substitute?" Hotch considered aloud.

"What if they were intending to make it look like a suicide?" Emily suggested, quietly, watching Odette's peaceful sketching.

"They couldn't complete their pattern without her, so they went after the only person they thought could expose them," Rossi insisted.

"And tried to make it look like Odette had killed her three key authority figures," Hotch agreed. "She was already in the frame for the other two, so why not?"

"That way they could still hurt her."

"They were making her life hell and Carpenter was going to the governors – they must have found out," said Emily. "That was their trigger. They had to stop people finding out."

"I bet you anythin', Principal Blake warned them off," Morgan grumbled.

"If they're particularly focussed on Odette, shouldn't we give her the profile?" JJ suggested.

The others looked around for a general consensus.

"It couldn' hurt," said Morgan, with a shrug. "Hey, kid – c'mere."

Odette looked up as though her mind had been a million miles away from this little room full of darkness. Somewhere on the savannah, JJ thought, tracing enormous footprints in the dust. She put down her sketchbook reluctantly and joined the huddle around the table.

"We've got a pretty good idea of who we're lookin' for, based on their behaviour," Morgan explained. "We just need you to tell us if they sound familiar."

"Well, what are you looking for?" she asked.

"We know there's more than one UnSub," JJ began. "Uh – more than one killer, working together."

Odette's expression changed very slightly, appalled that there could be several people crazy enough to decorate the classrooms with dead people in her school.

"Okay…"

"We're looking for a dominant personality with a submissive accomplice," Emily told her. "It's unlikely that two people would be prepared to commit murder, but the second person could be coerced or encouraged to take part in the staging of the crime scene."

"It's likely the darker parts of their personalities are feeding each other," Spencer said. "When they're together, the dominant mind can push the submissive one until they're prepared to go beyond the boundaries of what an adult mind would perceive as acceptable."

"They're egging each other on – if one of them turned away now, the other would probably stop," Grace added. "But they won't, because they're having too much fun."

"They've probably got a deep, personal bond," Rossi went on. "They may be related, but not necessarily – a boarding school community is like a family away from home – but they will be close. Closer still after they killed for the first time."

"Although one UnSub is dominant, they both have similar aspects," said Hotch. "They're arrogant, familiar with the school, intelligent, have a flair for the dramatic and are emotionally immature."

"And they really hate you," Grace added. "Ring a bell?"

Odette looked around at them all, and JJ realised she had someone in mind – she was doubting that even _they_ could have killed someone. They were just kids like her, after all.

"I can think of a few."

0o0o0o0

Talulah Wolfe blinked innocently up at Morgan and JJ, utterly bewildered.

"I just can't imagine why you would be talking to me," she said, mystified. "I've told you everything I know."

"I'm not sure that's true," said JJ, leaning in, candid. "I think you're the kind of person who knows everything that goes on in a school like Fairview."

"Yeah, I'd guess you don't miss much," Morgan purred.

Talulah preened, flattered.

"Well, I don't know about that," she denied, dimpling prettily. "Maybe just a little."

"Yeah?" Morgan asked. "Like what?"

Miss Wolfe shook her head, her expression adorable.

"No – I _can't_ ," she said, dramatically.

"Go on," JJ pressed, with a playful smile.

The pretty young red head flicked her hair back in a practised motion and looked over her shoulder. She beckoned the two agents closer.

" _I_ heard that Carpenter was fooling around with someone," she whispered. "Someone underage – a student!"

She sat back; JJ and Morgan looked suitably scandalised.

"I know, right?" Talulah exclaimed. "It's diabolical."

"Any idea who that might be?" Morgan asked, lightly.

0o0

"I can tell you exactly who you should be looking at," said Harmony de Villiers, calmly filing her nails. "And it isn't me."

"We'd love to hear it," said Rossi, casually draped over the nearest chair.

Grace had no idea how he did it – it was like everything he sat on was the most comfortable thing in the universe. Harmony looked at them both for a moment, dismissed Grace based solely on her appearance and focussed her attention on Rossi.

"There are some people, Agent Rossi, who are the right kind of people," said Miss de Villiers. "And some people who are not."

Rossi leaned forward, soaking up her attention.

"It's the same all over," he said, in honeyed tones.

"They're such a waste," she said. "Of money, of time, of space."

"It would be better if they all just disappeared," Rossi agreed.

"Exactly."

"But that's not what Chris Carpenter thought, was it?"

"No," said Harmony, a sour look on her face. "But if he wanted to waste his time, then that was his problem."

"And Piper Bonnell?" Grace asked.

Harmony didn't even look at her.

"I didn't take art," she said. "It's not my thing. All that paint and gook."

"Can really mess up a girl's nails, right?" Grace said, her head to one side.

Harmony looked at Grace's hands; her nails were clipped short because gardening and manicures didn't really gel.

"I doubt that you would know," she said.

Grace raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything. Harmony turned her attention to Rossi.

"Your nails are excellent," she said, blowing the dust off her file.

"Thanks."

"Bonnell took good care of herself, for an artist," she said, haughtily. "But she wasted her energy on the wrong sort."

"Like who?"

"Oh, you know," said Harmony.

"Like Principal Blake?"

"No," de Villiers frowned. "She knew the difference."

"The difference?"

"Between the right people and the wrong people," Harmony shrugged. "People like me, and –"

She trailed off as Grace's fingers closed around the file. Grace pulled the nail file out of her hands – gently, so as not to cut her, but firmly.

"Between you and Odette Moss?"

As close to her as she was, Grace saw the flicker of fear in Harmony's eyes – that momentary spark of doubt that told her they had her.

0o0

Aaron let Prentiss do the talking to start with. She had already spoken to Violet Alexander, built a rapport. Usually, with a teenage suspect, that would be enough, but damn if this one wasn't cold as ice. Nothing seemed to rattle her at all.

She was charming, erudite, beautiful, and very aware of her own strengths. This one wouldn't go down easily. Violet had made the whole school her playground, fashioned to revolve around her every whim. She believed absolutely that nothing could touch her – not because she had a relationship with a higher power. She _was_ the higher power.

A primary psychopath.

And now she had a taste for blood.

"I've done nothing wrong," she said, smiling her charming smile.

"I'm sure that's true," Hotch interjected. She turned her dark, beautiful eyes on him and he understood exactly why she made Reid think of sharks. Violet Alexander was a predator. "We just need to follow up on every possible avenue."

"Of course," she said simply, laying her hands primly in her lap. "How can I help you?"

"Tell us about Odette Moss."

Her expression didn't waver, not even for a second.

"Odette?" she asked, politely. "Why ever would you want to know about her?"

"You mentioned her yourself, when I asked if you knew who Chris Carpenter might have spoken to on Thursday to make him behave so unusually," said Prentiss, making a show of reading her notes.

"Oh, well I ought not have said anything, really," she said, her brow dipping. "This is awkward."

"How so?" Aaron prodded, gently.

"She's a little… unfortunate," she said, her voice laced with regret. "She's not well adjusted. A little temperamental at times. I don't want to say violent, but…"

Aaron nodded, wisely.

"I see what you're saying," he said, carefully. "Tell me, what did Principal Blake make of her?"

"I think she was worried about her," Violet said, softly. "Odette was taken out of class more and more. She was excluded from dinner – I think the Principal was protecting us. I think – I –I'm afraid Odette might have done something foolish."

"How foolish?"

0o0

"You want to know something interesting, Talulah?"

"You can call me Lulu, Agent Jareau," Talulah preened.

"Lulu," JJ smiled, accommodatingly. "We didn't release the contents of the letter you just described to the public – and no one inside the school has access to the media. We made sure of that."

"Oh?"

"So there's really no way you could know the contents of that letter – unless you went straight to the source?"

She let the sentence hang in the air, begging to be completed.

Talulah was impatient. She couldn't resist.

"I may have had a sneak peek at it," she simpered.

0o0

"You know, a thing like this can really hold you back in your career," said Grace, examining the nail file.

"A thing like what?" Harmony asked, sounding bored.

"Oh, you know – three murders," Grace said, casually.

"I haven't committed any murders!" Harmony exclaimed. "When my parents find out about this –"

"When your parents find out about this, you'll be in more trouble than you can even imagine," said Grace.

"So, why not talk to us?" Rossi suggested.

"I have nothing to say to you."

Harmony crossed her arms, as if this was the end of it.

"You don't have to say a word," said Grace. "You know what my favourite part of my job is? Forensics. I've always been fascinated by evidence. It's quiet, unobtrusive – and it doesn't lie."

She put the nail file into an evidence bag, careful not to touch the handle.

"Someone used Chris Carpenter's keys to lock all those doors on the second floor. Someone tied the Resusci Annie to Mrs Bonnell. Someone left a bloody fingerprint on the file they put in Principal Blake's office."

Harmony appeared to be mesmerised by the evidence bag in Grace's hands. Grace tilted her head to one side.

"I wonder if that someone remembered to wear gloves."

0o0

"That girl scares the hell out of me," said Prentiss.

Violet Alexander was playing with her hair in the history classroom. Aaron would have said that she was cooling her heels, except that she obviously wasn't. He wasn't sure she had ever felt anything in her life – certainly not fear. Her game had been spoiled, but that was all. If they put her up against a polygraph, she'd beat it without even blinking.

It worried him that she might be entirely un-prosecutable.

No jury would believe that someone like her could orchestrate this much destruction.

"Hey," said Morgan. "Talulah wrote the letter, sent it to the press. She helped stage the scenes and move the bodies, but she doesn't seem interested in talkin' about what anyone else did. Classic narcissist."

"And Violet pandered to that side of her," Prentiss sighed.

Morgan nodded.

"JJ's workin' on her. Hey," he nodded.

Pearce came around the corner.

"Full confession," she said, waving an evidence envelope. "Rossi's writing it up now."

"She implicated the others?"

"Oh yeah, in abundance," she told them. "Times, places, plans, people – everything. They've been torturing Odette for months – the Principal knew. She was intercepting her letters – and the ones from her parents – isolating her."

"Protecting the school's reputation," Hotch remarked, despairing.

"When Carpenter told Blake he was going to the Governors about it, she warned the girls so they could get their parents to intercede, but Violet decided to take matters into her own hands." She ran a hand through her hair, exhausted. "They were going to try to scare him into staying quiet, but he didn't scare easy."

"Violet had the gun?" Prentiss asked.

Pearce nodded.

"She'd brought it from home – 'borrowed' it from her uncle at the last semester break. She shot him by accident the first time – or so Harmony says…"

"But they had to finish him off," Morgan nodded.

"And the set dressing?" Prentiss asked.

"Harmony has a flair for the dramatic."

"So does Talulah," said Morgan.

"At some point it occurred to them that they could implicate Odette – they'd seen the painting, so," she shrugged. "They were going to take it and put it somewhere conspicuous, but Piper Bonnell interrupted them. Harmony said they 'played with her' for a bit after Violet shot her the first time."

There was a moment of horrified silence.

"Played with her?"

"She said it was like the way her cat played with a mouse," said Pearce, obviously disgusted. "I got the impression that all three of them were enjoying it – egging each other on. Once they'd dressed up the second scene they decided they'd need a third – a suicide, to make it really convincing."

Morgan swore under his breath.

"And when they couldn't find Odette?" Aaron asked.

"They realised that the Principal could point the finger at them – and without Odette around to take the blame, she might just do it."

She dropped the evidence envelope on the table.

"You know, most of the time I really like this part of a case – but this?" she shook her head.

"Tell me about it," said Morgan.

"I cannot wait to get out of here." Prentiss tipped her head back, exhausted.

Aaron couldn't agree more.

"We've got one last thing to do," he told them.

0o0

"We can confirm that three suspects have been charged with the murders of Chris Carpenter, Piper Bonnell and Margaret Blake," said JJ, addressing the small crowd of press. She ignored the questions that were being yelled at her. "These arrests were made with the indispensable help of the Middlesex County Police Department. Detective Jacob Whiteley will be making a short statement momentarily, but first I would like to address the families of the students of Fairview House, to thank them for their patience and understanding at this trying time. The school administrator, Nancy Cartwright, has asked me to inform you that she will be in touch with you directly, as soon as she has ensured the safety and well-being of her students. Thank you."

She nodded to Detective Whiteley, who was grasping the statement they'd worked on together. He had a strong and steady career in front of him, JJ thought, and seemed just as relieved to be seeing them go as he had been to see them arrive. She stood a little to one side, keeping her eyes on the crowd.

JJ waited until he was winding up his short statement, just as the assembled journalists were beginning to clamour for more, to give her signal to Hotch.

For a moment or two, no one noticed the three girls being led, gently but firmly down the steps to the waiting police cars, the weak afternoon light glinting off their handcuffs, but when they did…

JJ smiled, grimly, as Hotch, Rossi and Morgan piloted their charges through the bristling microphones in front of the late gothic splendour of Fairview House.

There would be no more secrets here.

 **0o0**

 _For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;_

 _Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds._

 _Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare_


	19. 3rd Life

**Essential listening: Time is Running Out, Muse**

 **0o0**

Two missing girls, one of whom had already turned up dead, did not bode well for a straightforward case. They'd got the call mid-afternoon, and the urgency of two abducted teenagers had pushed everything else off the table. They'd taken the briefing on the jet to save time. The first twenty four hours on an abduction case could be all they had. No one on the team needed Reid to remind them the low percentage of children who survived more than twenty four hours with their captors.

Sliding through the dark streets of Chula Vista, California, she fancied all of them could hear that drum beat – the ticking clock in the back of their minds. They left the SUVs outside the line of the crime scene tape, like a small swarm of government hornets.

"Have you ID'ed the body?" Hotch asked, striding ahead.

"It's a girl," said Detective Payton, who had called them in, and who had plainly been waiting for them.

Hotch frowned at his turn of phrase. The detective's words had been carefully chosen. He looked haggard and worn. He'd called them in as soon as they found her, aware that his team needed all the help they could get.

"One of the missing girls?"

"All I can tell you right now," said Payton, darkly, "is it's a girl."

Grace's heart sank. She'd been to enough crime scenes and observed enough autopsies to know what _that_ meant. It meant mutilation, to the point where the victim was unrecognisable. The tools were almost always crude – except for that guy in Carollton, Texas, who had used a scalpel and kept the faces for himself. She steeled herself for the sight that was awaiting them.

"Did you draw up a list of those involved in the search?" Morgan asked, as they reached the tape line.

Payton nodded, handing him a sheaf of papers. He had been forewarned, prepped by JJ from the jet.

"You'll find the names of the parents of both the girls on that list."

"Please tell me they didn't discover the body," said Prentiss, brushing her long, dark hair out of her face.

"No – soon as our dogs caught her scent we kept 'em away from the scene," said Payton.

Grace nodded, thankfully. Some things, parents just didn't need to see.

"Anyone stand out among the volunteers?" she asked.

"No." He shook his head. "We checked and re-checked."

"She's been missing eighteen hours?" Reid asked, watching his feet as they climbed the muddy bank to the dump site.

"That's correct – we found the body five hours ago," Payton replied.

They paused at the top of the bank. Below them, her legs tucked to one side, arms flung out as though someone had pushed her out of the back of a truck, was a small, battered body. Her skin was crimson with blood and bruises. Her hands and face were mangled beyond recognition. Someone had taken a knife – quite a crude one by the look of it – to her hands, which were butchered all the way to the bone.

The space where her face had been defied description. It looked like the UnSub had used fists as well as the knife there. Apart from the slight rise where the cartilage of her nose was and the gaping black space of her mouth, you wouldn't have known that it was a human face. A dark band of bruising around her neck hinted at a cause of death.

Grace swore, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. She looked so small and vulnerable down there: far too young to have faced such horrors. Grace stared down at the broken body, despairing of the world.

Every case and every corpse was different, and this one had Grace by the throat. She felt ill.

"Have the parents been here all this time?" she heard JJ ask.

"Yeah," said Detective Payton, heavily. "And I'm running out of excuses."

"I'm going to go talk to them," JJ announced, slipping easily into her accustomed role.

Morgan looked up.

"JJ, I'll come with you," he said.

After five hours of agonising over whose daughter was in that ditch, she would need all the help that she got.

"Thanks," the detective sighed, looking relieved.

The team was silent and still for a moment, surveying the dark work in front of them. She could have been anyone – just another dead kid and the bottom of another bloody ditch – but she wasn't, not to her parents. Grace glanced over to where JJ and Morgan were introducing themselves to the three distraught people beyond the crime scene tape. She could imagine their pain; she felt it herself.

Detective Payton grimaced, looking like a man who was very much out of his depth.

"I gotta be honest guys, I'm glad you're all here because I have never seen anything like _that,_ " he said.

"Her face and her hands have been obliterated," Hotch observed.

Reid and Prentiss moved forward, gloving up as they went. Grace hung back. She didn't want to be any closer to the mess someone had made of someone else's baby than she had to be. Not right now. It was too close to the bone.

"Developed bruises, cuts – layer upon layer," Prentiss remarked, sadly.

Reid frowned, peering closely at the girl.

"The bindings cut deep into her flesh," he observed.

"Around her neck there's heavy bruising," Prentiss pointed out. "She was strangled to death."

"A belt was used," said Reid, point with his middle finger. "You can see the indentation marks of the buckle."

Prentiss nodded.

"Why destroy her hands and face?" the detective asked.

"It indicates she knew the attacker," Hotch told him.

"By destroying her ID they're hoping to delay you making a connection between the victim and the UnSub," Rossi explained.

"It gives them time to get away," Hotch added.

Prentiss looked back at them, unhappily. Grace couldn't help but agree: five hours and no ID?

"It worked," she muttered, shoving her hands as deep in her pockets as they would go.

Detective Payton looked around, earnestly.

"You think the other girl's still alive?"

Rossi thought about it.

"Until we find her body we should assume she is," he said.

"One thing's for sure, this is only the dump site," Hotch remarked. "We need to figure out where she was killed."

Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw Rossi's expression change; she followed his gaze to see one of the parents – a thick-set, solid looking man with a closed expression – peering down at them from a nearby ridge. There was no danger of him seeing the girl in the ditch, thankfully, but he was paying a great deal of attention to the team's expressions.

"And which girl we're looking for," said Rossi, his eyes on the man above.

0o0

Back at the police department, the team gathered around Detective Payton's computer terminal, listening to the awful phone message that had been left on Mrs Owens' phone. Clearly, one of the girls had called home – by accident or design – in deepest distress. The answer phone service on Lori Owen's mobile had captured the moment of one of their deaths – but which one?

Garcia had transcribed the words, which she'd put up on the screen before playing the message. Grace had known from her expression that it would be bad. Three weeks back after being shot, Garcia shouldn't have to deal with such harrowing stuff. She looked away as two teenage girls plead for their lives. One of them was more in control, encouraging her friend not to show their captors any fear – an effort to keep them both alive for longer. It hadn't worked.

" _Oh God! Stop it! Daddy, stop them! Please."_

She closed her eyes as the young woman's terrified voice was choked off – probably with a belt.

"It lasts exactly fifty-three seconds," said Garcia, heavily, "and then it goes dead. I think she was strangled…"

Morgan shook himself, looking at Hotch and Rossi.

"What d'you wanna do?" he asked.

"Do? There's nothing else to do," Rossi exclaimed. "The parents can ID the voice."

Grace's head snapped around.

"No way," she said aloud.

 _Don't do that to them._

"Are you serious?" Prentiss gaped at him.

"No!" Garcia cried urgently, from inside the screen. "No, sir – they can never hear this!"

"We can't do that to them," Grace insisted.

"It'll be the fastest way to figure out who we're looking for," Rossi told them, sadly.

"There's gotta be another way," said Prentiss, appalled.

"DNA?" Detective Payton asked.

Grace shook her head. It would take too long. By the time they got the result, the other girl would probably be dead – they needed to get people looking for her. Without fingerprints, it was the best chance they had, but…

She looked at Hotch, who had turned to assess the board of evidence behind him. The closed, troubled look on his face telling her that they didn't have an option. She shared a dark look with Prentiss.

 _I don't want to be a part of this_ , she realised, and walked away before Hotch made the inevitable decision.

0o0o0o0

Spencer stared at the screen, listening to Garcia work her magic at the other end of the line. With one teenage UnSub dead and rape the likeliest motive, they needed to track down the second girl fast, before the accomplices who had stabbed their friend when he'd panicked decided to dispose of Lindsey Vaughan, permanently – the way they had with Katie Owen.

They'd been working on narrowing down the kid's known friends and associates, but as neither Lindsey's dad nor Katie's parents seemed to know who he was, it was taking longer than usual. Too long.

After the revelation that Jack and Lindsey were in witness protection, hiding from the Boston Irish mob, he had been relieved to discover that this was all down to a bunch of teenagers – then sickened. It reminded him forcibly of Fairview House, which he would really rather forget. He glanced into the interview room, where Katie's dad was apologising to the ex-mob enforcer for flipping out when they'd realised it was Katie's body in that ditch.

It was incredible, really, that a man like Jack had become a straight, hard-working family guy – the kind of neighbour you'd trust with your teenage daughter – in so short a time. His daughter clearly meant the world to him. Spencer didn't like to think what might happen if they didn't find Lindsey in time.

"'kay I got three Ryans," said Garcia.

"The Ryan we're looking for probably went to high school with Lindsey and Katie a few years back," he said, as Garcia typed furiously, trying to track down the bad influence their dead UnSub's father half-remembered. "He got expelled, or at least flunked out."

Movement behind him made Spencer turn; Bruce Owen, the grieving father of the girl in the ditch left the interview room, looking exhausted.

"Ryan Phillips," said Garcia, triumphantly. "He was expelled for smoking pot years ago."

Spencer barely heard her. The room behind him was still – worryingly so. He stuck his head inside; Jack Vaughan was nowhere to be seen. His pills, which several of the BAU had speculated were designed to keep his violent side in check, were on the table – a clear message of intent. Where Jack was going, he wouldn't need them.

 _Oh no…_

"Reid, what's going on?" Garcia demanded, watching his panicked expression from the screen on the desk.

"He took my car!"

Reid spun around as the US Marshall tasked with protecting Jack and Lindsey staggered into the police department, nose bloodied and eyes watering.

"Bastard took my car!" The Marshall grabbed a radio from the desk Sergeant. "This is Pat Mannan," he barked. "All units, all units – I want an APB out on Jack Vaughan!"

He met Spencer's eyes across the room, hostile and embarrassed, wiping the blood from his upper lip. Spencer dived for the phone, frantically dialling Emily's number, a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

0o0

Three SUVs with the combined cavalry of the BAU and the Chula Vista police department screeched to a halt in a handy parking lot, halfway across town.

"Jack's taken off!" Prentiss called, as they convened in the middle of the bumpers for a quick change of tactics.

"We heard," said Morgan, nodding at Grace, who had only just got off the phone with Garcia.

"Where's he gonna go?" Detective Payton asked, baffled by this new turn of events. "He can't know where Lindsey is!"

"No, but he might know who's got her," said Hotch.

"How?" JJ wondered.

"You showed Bruce Owen Doug's photo, right?"

"He recognised him," Morgan guessed.

"He lied," Grace exclaimed, smacking a hand against her forehead.

"Which means he knows who Doug's friends are," Hotch continued.

"And where they might be," she realised.

"And now he's set a psychopath after his daughter's killer," Morgan said, and then swore.

 _So would I,_ Grace realised, and the thought made her blood go cold. It was the kind of thought a trained, trusted agent (let alone copper) ought not have, but she couldn't help it. She pushed it away, along with the image of Katie Owen's mutilated face. She couldn't have a personal preference here, no matter how much she wanted Jack Vaughan to beat them to the punch.

"Garcia's got a name," Prentiss announced, still on the phone to Reid. "Ryan Phillips, twenty-eight."

"Let's get a unit out to Phillips' house before Jack turns up there," Hotch instructed, and Detective Payton got on his radio to pass on the command, recognising good sense when he heard it.

"One thing's for sure," said Rossi. "We know Ryan won't be there."

"We better figure out where he is before Jack does," said Hotch, bleakly.

0o0

Spencer scribbled urgently on the map of Chula Vista, two pens in one hand, another in his mouth, and yet another working on the Perspex. He could feel the US Marshall hovering behind him, but since the man had been little more than an obstructive presence so far, and was apt to distrust, ignore and undermine the team, he was ignoring him.

"You gotta find him – and fast!" Mannan snapped, inches above Spencer's head.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Reid retorted, spitting out one of the pens.

He would have been angrier if he'd had time to be, but he didn't. Besides, there was no arguing with this particular brand of idiot.

"Colouring in a map!" the other man hissed, accusingly.

"All the activity is focussed in the south eastern district – the abduction site, the dump site, Ryan Phillips' house…" he said, thinking out loud.

Somewhere behind him, an officer hurried in and passed Mannan a dispatch – intel from his APB probably, but right now that was less than useless. They didn't need to know where people thought Jack Vaughan was – they needed to know where he _would_ be.

"We got shots comin' from Jackson Street," said the Marshall, already heading for the door. He stopped when he realised no one was following him. "Are you coming?"

Spencer didn't even bother looking up. By the time he straightened up and reached for his phone, the Marshall had gone.

"Reid! Good news, please," Hotch instructed.

"After inputting all the sites I've come up with a two-dimensional probability surface overlay map that indicates the offender's operating area –"

"Reid, where is he?" Hotch demanded, his patience clearly wearing thin.

"I know it sounds crazy, but I think he's taken her to the Mayford High School, two blocks from here."

 _I'm closer_ , he realised, and started to move.

"We'll meet you there," said Hotch; Spencer could hear orders being barked at the other end of the line. "And Reid? Be careful."

 _With a psychopath out for blood? Yeah._

"Thanks."

0o0

He came to a halt in the school parking lot with a jolt, next to a car that had to be Jack Vaughan's. Spencer ducked down as he got out of the SUV, just in case: his target wasn't in the car, which meant he was already inside.

Praying that he wouldn't be too late, he strafed around the corner of the building, moving low past the windows to each classroom. If Lindsey's abductor _was_ inside, he didn't want to alert him – he might kill Lindsey before he or Jack could get to him.

Pulse thumping dully in his temples, he shadowed the wall, his heart leaping momentarily when he caught sight of a door. It was the first door he'd seen since the parking lot – and would have been the first one Jack saw, too. He must have gone in through there. Concealing himself beside the door, he cleared the corridor through the glass before moving inside: there was no one in sight.

Spencer was more than halfway down the hallway before he heard shouting and banging coming from one of the rooms on the right hand side. He quickly identified the right door – the boys' bathroom. Of course. Where else would you hide your abductee if you flunked out of high school for smoking pot?

He could hear Lindsey screaming inside, her voice shrill with fear and anger, rebounding off the walls:

"Kill him! Kill him Daddy!"

Grimly, Spencer opened the door and strafed around the corner of the stalls, his gun up.

Jack Vaughan was standing over a young man – not much older than Spencer – who had to be Ryan Phillips, a shotgun aimed at Phillips' head. Lindsey, barefoot and her hands still bound behind her back, was right beside him, pleading with her father to avenge her friend's brutal rape and murder. Phillips was bleeding from his nose and mouth, probably as a result of taking a blow from the stock of the shotgun. His hands were up and he was crying – begging for his life.

"Put the gun down!" Spencer ordered, his gun trained on Jack.

The ex-mob assassin didn't move – but nor did he shoot.

"Help me, please?" Phillips gasped, reaching out his other hand to Spencer. "Please help me!"

"Jack! Put down the gun!" Spencer called again.

Lindsey Vaughan glanced in his direction and closed in on her father.

"She begged him to stop and he laughed at her!" she hissed, desperate for revenge, her own personal sense of justice outraged. Her best friend was dead and nothing could change that. Spencer blinked, unhelpful thoughts of what he would do if it was _his_ best friend, threatening to intrude. "He laughed at her!"

"I didn't laugh at her!" Phillips fairly screamed. "Honestly, I would change this if I could, but I can't!" he insisted, his voice falling to a frightened whisper in the implacable face of his second victim's father. "Please, just don't kill me!"

Spencer didn't believe him for a moment, but with a man's life in the balance, he had to try. He didn't think he would be able to forgive himself if Phillips died now – this cruel boy's life was his responsibility. Thinking fast, he returned to the one thing that had brought real emotion to Jack's face: the promise he had made to his dying wife.

"Jack, you swore to your wife you'd protect Lindsey," Spencer reminded him, urgently. "Listen to her, Jack. Listen to what she wants." He paused, momentarily. "She's – she's _begging_ you kill somebody right in front of her."

Lindsey looked around at him, her face a mixture of annoyance at his interference and confusion that anyone would want the monster on the floor of the bathroom to live. She certainly didn't.

"What do you think your wife wanted you to protect her from?" Spencer asked.

He could see Jack thinking this through, considering what was best for Lindsey. It gave him hope.

"Jack," he continued, swallowing anxiously. "Your life has been – uh – it's been about violence, and if you do this – Lindsey's will be too."

Phillips gave another sob and Spencer saw Jack glance at his daughter.

"Do you want that?"

"No!" Phillips cried. "You don't want that!"

"When does it end, Jack?" Spencer asked, feeling that he was getting somewhere.

"Put down the gun!" Phillips pleaded, frantically.

"Kill him."

Jack looked at his daughter again, his hands keeping the shotgun level and steady.

She stared back, silently urging him on.

"When does it stop?" Spencer asked.

He saw Jack's face change at the moment he made up his mind, but he was powerless to stop it.

"Tomorrow."


	20. Michael

**Essential Listening: Pink, Beam Me Up**

 **0o0**

Grace's feet had barely hit the pavement when they heard the shot – the tell-tale ringing boom of a shotgun. It felt like her heart had stopped.

 _Spencer._

She sprinted towards the school; the whole team did, like Olympians out of their starting blocks, half the local police department bringing up the rear. The school – like all high schools – was a maze of labs and outbuildings. Praying they had the right block, they pelted around a corner, their guns ready.

The thought of her friend lying somewhere on the floor of the school made her reckless and clumsy; she stumbled as they slowed, nearing a door.

"I think it came from in here!" Hotch shouted, still running.

"Yeah!" Morgan agreed, clearing the corridor before he burst into the school.

 _Please be okay,_ Grace prayed, as they paused in the shelter beside the door. Moving safely always meant moving slowly, and right now 'safe' was way too slow.

 _I'm not going to lose you, too._

Hotch gave the 'Go' order and they rushed through the door, strafing down the hallway in loose formation.

Only Detective Payton came with them, forming an extension of their unit. She heard the local officers come to a halt behind the door, sensibly waiting to form a second wave if necessary. Grace didn't want sensible. She wanted all the fires of Hell. Her skin itched and tightened beneath her stab vest, instinctual magic gathering at her fingertips. If Spencer was hurt in there, there would be the Devil to pay.

Halfway down the corridor, a door burst open. Everyone tensed, relaxing momentarily when they saw Lindsey Vaughan and her father, mercifully unharmed – and unarmed.

"Woah!" Jack exclaimed, startled. He put the arm that wasn't wrapped around his daughter's shoulders up, placatingly.

Emily, JJ and the Detective veered off to intercept them and get them out of harm's way or detain them.

There was still no sign of Spencer.

She followed Hotch, Rossi and Morgan through the door Jack and Lindsey had emerged from, steeling herself for the very worst.

They found Reid standing in the bathroom, staring at the cooling corpse of Ryan Phillips, his gun hanging loose by his side. Pushing the rush of relief she felt aside, she peered past Rossi to the mess on the floor.

Phillips appeared to be missing a head: the work of a shotgun at close range.

Grace holstered her gun, feeling oddly numb, and made the shotgun safe, laying it on one of the sinks for forensics to deal with later. The barrels were still warm.

"You okay, Reid?" Morgan asked.

Grace glanced in his direction. His mouth was slack with shock.

"I tried," he said, realising they were there for the first time. "I tried, but I – I couldn't…" he shook his head, looking blankly at Morgan. "What's gonna happen to Jack?"

"Depends," said Rossi, ever the cynic. "On how important a witness he is."

Morgan grasped Reid's shoulder for a moment, before leading the exodus from the bathroom. There was nothing more they could do in here anyway; the living were the priority right now. Grace followed them slowly, pausing beside him when Reid didn't move.

"Spencer?" she asked, softly.

He couldn't seem to take his eyes off Phillips' headless corpse, mesmerised by yet another image he would never be able to un-see. Gently, she slipped the gun out of his unresisting fingers, put the safety on and slipped it into the holster on his belt. For a man who hated to be touched, he didn't move a muscle. She touched his arm.

He turned on her so haunted a look that she stepped back a pace.

"Come on," she said, taking him by the elbow.

She pushed him out of that horrible place, leading him out into the air as gently as she could. As soon as they were outside he pulled away from her, and Grace sensed that he needed isolation to process what he'd seen. Watching a man's head explode could do that to a person.

She let him walk ahead, unwilling to disturb him, unhappy that she couldn't reconcile that part of her that knew when it came to it, if it had been her, she would have taken the shot.

0o0

 _It is a wise father who knows his own child_

– _William Shakespeare._

0o0

Grace tucked herself up in the seat furthest from everyone else in the jet. As cases went, this had been a bad one. Spencer, who was staring out of the window a few seats over, still hadn't lost that haunted look. No one was speaking. It was late, as they had been, and they all wanted to forget the way things had gone.

Professionally, of course, she disapproved of revenge killings and vigilantism. The moral code of the organisation and government to whom she had sworn an oath – and been sworn to back in England – demanded it. She was sure, however, that if Lindsey or Katie had been her daughter, she would have taken any chance she had to kill Ryan Phillips. The thought disturbed and unsettled her.

It was cases like this that made her question whether she ought to have a badge at all, let alone a gun.

Grief could do funny things to a person. Her mind wasn't in the right place right now: it was firmly in the past, in the London of three years ago, when she had been blissfully unaware of things to come. She had been happy then, and excited, ready for what she _knew_ would be the next great adventure. She recalled the care with which she'd painted the room and picked out lots of tiny, bright things, before all the colour had leached out of her world.

Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could even feel the material under her fingers.

The memories were there all the time, of course, lurking beneath the surface of every conversation, every case; every step she took in this strange foreign land.

Back in London, they had been too stark, too much a part of the fabric of the city for her to breathe; here, they were duller, most of the time – quiet enough to get on with living. She refused to let it spill over into her work: that was something she couldn't allow. Work had to be separate, that was the rule.

You had to have rules, or you would lose your mind.

She pulled her legs up underneath her, wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed her eyes shut, aware that no matter what she did this week, closing her eyes would mean seeing the same dream: brightly coloured things in a cold, empty room.

0o0o0o0

The feeling hadn't left him, though he'd ignored it for as long as he could. That quiet, desperate ache for escape at the back of his mind. It clung to him, as he had known it would, demanding more and more attention until he felt like it was screaming. He hadn't slept, afraid to close his eyes because of what was waiting for him: that pleading expression before Phillips' face exploded in a red mist; Tobias Hankel's eyes as the light faded from them; the parade of cold, pale corpses that had become his life's work.

Instead, he'd forced himself to play endless permutations of chess moves – a project he had begun when it became clear that Gideon wasn't coming back. It was enough to keep him awake, keep him distracted, but he was aware that he was fast running out of 'enough'.

He cradled his coffee in his hands, slumped in his usual chair in the conference room, ignoring his co-workers unless they spoke directly to him. He knew what he was doing, and it irked him a little to admit it, even in the privacy of his own head, but he didn't want to talk to any of them, not right now. Not unless they were blonde, stubborn, sarcastic, impossibly perky at three in the goddamn morning, probably magic and called Grace.

And also, noticeably, absent.

Irritably, he wondered when her presence had become so much a necessity that her absence made the world seem colder and more hostile. Spencer hunched further down in his chair. It felt like the universe was spinning around his head, like he was the only still point in it. It was dizzying: impossible. He needed to hear her voice, or see the end of her brightly coloured scarf trailing around the corner – and he knew it.

Unlike the others, she had seen the darker parts of his personality – and, unlike the others, she didn't treat him like a child. Sometimes he forgot that he was actually a little older than her; she seemed so much more in control.

It wasn't a case of attraction – not that he _wasn't_ attracted to her, because he'd had to concede that he was (he could admit that now, very occasionally, inside his own head). It just wasn't important right now. He needed her down-to-earth, practical solidity and her dark, silly sense of humour. It would steady him, and right at this instant he needed the world to stop spinning.

It was as if when Grace came into a room, he remembered how to breathe.

His frown deepened as the room filled up with agents – all except one. She was hardly ever late. The more he'd thought about it, the more it worried him: ever since they'd got back from Chula Vista she'd been distant, distracted. He had thought she was just allowing him the space he needed to work through things on his own, but now…

It occurred to him that actually, she'd been distracted before then: quieter, sitting away from the others, lost in thought. He looked up, hearing footsteps, hoping to see his friend.

"Let's get started," said Hotch, striding in with a stack of files under his arms.

"Wait – what about Grace?" Emily asked, looking around.

"Yeah man, give it a few minutes," said Morgan.

Hotch frowned.

"She's on leave – didn't she mention it?" he asked, puzzled.

Around the room, a series of confused expressions suggested that no, she hadn't.

"Well, she'll be back Monday," he said, dropping the files on the table.

"Probably out sampling the local culture," Rossi joked, smiling.

"Or enjoying a naughty weekend," Emily laughed, with a wink. " _I_ wouldn't tell us about that!"

Spencer stared at Emily for a moment, surprised at how much he hoped that wasn't true.

0o0o0o0

He stood outside her front door, feeling uncomfortable, his hands in his pockets.

Spencer chewed his bottom lip, torn. Everybody needed a break sometimes and he shouldn't intrude. She could be having a day to herself, or out on a date (a possibility he wasn't all that happy about), or back in London for a day or two. She probably wasn't even in Washington.

Wherever she was, she wasn't answering the door.

All day, her sudden absence had worried him. If it was something as simple as annual leave, why hadn't she said anything? Okay, he hadn't been particularly sociable over the last few days, but then why not mention it to the others?

It was suspicious, and tied in with her distracted behaviour…

He moved around to the back of the house and peered through the dark windows. None of the lights were on, and the surfaces looked tidy – no books left out, no cups on the side. It looked like she was well and truly gone – at least for the next couple of days.

Spencer fingered the phone in his pocket, tempted to call her, but he knew that wouldn't be fair. At least half of his concern, he knew, was based on the fact that _he_ needed to see her.

He sighed, releasing a cloud of steam into the evening air and admitting defeat.

He just couldn't shake the feeling that she was – not in trouble, so much – but in need of a friend.

Pulling his coat a little tighter around himself, he trudged home. Although spring was making itself known now, in early April, Fairfax was cold. The day had been bright and clear, and the afternoon was fading now into a frosty evening. People were beginning to hurry homewards, into the warm.

On a whim, and because he felt it might distract him, Spencer cut through the park he sometimes played chess in. He knew Grace liked it, and there was just a chance she'd been out for a walk. He was clutching at straws, and he didn't seriously expect to see her, so when he spotted her in the quieter part of the park he was surprised.

She was sitting with her back against a big, old oak tree a little way away, her arms around her knees, staring up into the twilit sky. Spencer left the path, walking slowly now. She didn't look like she wanted company. In fact, everybody else seemed to be giving her a wide berth, even the dog-walkers and the unruly kids.

Suddenly, his step faltered and he came to a halt. A wave of doubt crashed through him – clearly Grace was out here alone for a reason.

He paused and bit his lip, thinking of the way her pulse had raced at the hospital and the way she hadn't been able to keep still: almost textbook PTSD, without the hypervigilance. An old trauma, then, probably part of the reason she'd left London, and not connected to her father's death because she'd told him all about that and she hadn't ended up in hospital. This was something that she didn't want to talk about at all.

There were other things about that long, tense wait in the hospital that had stayed with him, too. Micro-expressions, tiny facets of unconscious behaviour that told a story Grace wasn't comfortable discussing.

Making up his mind, he stepped forward and the doubt evaporated, as if there had been a sort of wall of it ten feet away from her. He narrowed his eyes. She was a witch, after all, and he knew she hadn't told him everything about that. He glanced behind him: everything seemed a lot further away now, muffled almost.

Spencer stopped a foot or so behind her, watching her profile closely. There was a small cardboard box by her feet – a bakery box, perhaps.

Grace didn't give him any indication that she knew he was there, but he had a shrewd suspicion that she did. If the momentary wall of indecision had really been a thing then she would probably know about anybody who overcame it. He hesitated, wondering whether he should carry on – but she hadn't told him to leave, and that was something Grace was always straightforward about.

He wondered how long she had been out here, sitting on the cold, damp grass.

"Hey," said Spencer, eventually.

Grace's eyes slid towards him, but she didn't move.

"Hey."

The world was still for a while as he tried to think of something kind to say. He couldn't think of a thing.

"It's uh – it's cold tonight," he offered, when the silence went on for too long.

"Mmm."

Spencer let his eyes drop to the ground around his feet. The awful part of it was, if he'd guessed wrong, then he was only going to make things worse – probably would anyway, even if he was right. But he had to try. It was Grace. He couldn't leave her alone out here.

"How old is…" he faltered. As conversations went, this one was horrible. "I mean I – I figured it was a birthday…"

For a moment, Grace seemed to stop breathing. The steam that had been escaping in steady intervals from her nose and mouth ceased entirely. Then, in a voice too quiet for him to make out, she answered his question. He saw her lips move. She coughed, apparently realising that he couldn't have heard her.

"Three," she whispered, and he bit his lip.

"Oh Grace, I'm sorry," he breathed, wanting to reach out and hold her.

He knew, however, that there was nothing he could say or do to make this okay.

"I bought him a cake," she said, after a moment, and tapped the box with the toe of her boot.

She glanced up at him then, and he understood that it was not quite an invitation, but at least an acceptance of his presence. He sat down on her other side, pulling his legs up the way she had, his back braced against the trunk of the tree. Grace stared at her hands.

"How did you know?" she asked, her voice painful and quiet, even in the stillness of the emptying park.

"The hospital," he admitted. "The way your hand kept… It's a behaviour… it's associated with – with pregnancy," he finished, lamely.

He'd wondered about it then, when she'd given him a look that told him this topic was indisputably out of bounds, but her absence and the cake box had clinched it.

She nodded, expression bitter.

"It is. It's automatic." She gave a hollow laugh. "I don't even know I'm doing it."

She lapsed back into a silence that seemed to be amplified by the stillness of the night.

"What was his name?" he asked, after a moment.

"Michael. I was going to call him Michael."

Speaking his name out loud was apparently too much to bear, even for someone as strong as his friend; Spencer saw her hand go to her mouth, a last ditch attempt to stop the tears. Without thinking, he reached for the other one.

"I – uh… I never even –" she stopped and shook her head. The expression on her face was almost more than he could handle.

"You don't have to tell me," he said, wishing he could do or say something – anything – to help.

"No, it's – it's… There was… I was at work," she choked, barely keeping back her tears. "I shouldn't have been. I was on leave. I mean, of course I was on leave – I was two weeks off my due date."

His heart broke for her. To come that close and then to lose him must have been agony. Must still be. Her mouth opened and closed again a few times, framing sentences that were impossible to say.

"I was in a coma for… and – when I woke up…" She stopped, frowned and started again. "When I came round… I knew straight away. They took him away before…" she swallowed. "They took him away while I was still –"

She let out a breath, and with it came three years of pent-up emotion.

"I never even got to h-hold him," she sobbed. "Not even once."

The sobs stopped as quickly as they had started, though the tears still rolled freely down her cheeks. Her grip on his hand was painfully tight.

"I really wish – I could have held him."

Spencer wrapped his arm around her shoulder. There just wasn't anything he could say.

"Everyone was really… kind," she said, "And then – well I think they just expect that you'll get better, you know… that you're okay. I don't think they understood."

"Oh, Gracie…"

He pulled her as close as he dared; she leaned into him a little, freezing cold, but solid. He remembered what she'd said that hazy, complicated morning in New Orleans: _I begged for them to come, but no one did_.

"And then my father started getting confused, and…" she sighed.

It seemed so long ago now, everything that had chased her from England. The BAU wouldn't feel right if she wasn't there anymore. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like if she'd stayed in London; he didn't want to.

"There isn't a day goes by I don't miss him," Grace whispered, absently rubbing her abdomen. "Even here – I thought if I put some distance between me and my old life…"

"But it doesn't work like that," Spencer finished, quietly, and she shook her head.

"No, it doesn't."

She sniffed and sat up. He could feel her pulling herself together and he didn't know if she should – if maybe it would be better for her to fall apart right now, once and for all, before the eventual fall became so big that she wouldn't be able to get up again.

He watched as she opened the cake box, his hand still on her shoulder. The cake was small and jolly, with icing sugar balloons and a large number three on the top. It looked so desolate, sitting on the damp cardboard box. It made him feel like crying. Grace pulled three little candles out of her coat pocket and stuck them in the top, in an arc above the brightly coloured balloons.

When she sat back he was surprised to find that she leaned into his arm again, resting her weight against his shoulder; it heartened him that his presence was giving her a little comfort. He gave her shoulders a small squeeze.

"Did you bring a light?" he asked, after a while, and Grace chuckled, wetly.

He realised she'd been crying, silently, ever since she'd stopped speaking.

" _I_ don't need one," she told him, with an air of damp imperiousness, and waved her hand above the wicks.

With a little sputtering noise, each candle burst into a small, bright flame. Spencer tensed, staring at them.

"I am never going to get used to that," he remarked, when he'd adjusted his mental universe a little.

Grace chuckled again.

"Sorry."

"Don't be…"

 _It's just who you are._

Spencer was itching to ask her how it worked – could he see it one more time? Could she teach him how to do it? Did it burn her? How did she control it? How did it work? – but this was definitely not the time. Eyes still on the candles in case they did something else, he felt her turn her head and found her looking at him, the after-image of the flames dancing in front of his eyes.

"He would have liked you," she said, softly, and Spencer's heart did a funny little dance inside his chest.

"Yeah?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"Definitely."

She rested her head against his shoulder and neck.

"You'd still be in England," he pointed out, following her gaze back towards the flickering candles.

"No, I'd have taken the transfer and brought him with me," she said, firmly, though he didn't entirely believe her. What else would she have had to run from? "I'd be chasing him through puddles in the park at the weekend, trying to stop Garcia and JJ spoiling him rotten, taking him to playdates with Jack. You'd be teaching him chess and set theory, or something."

Spencer chuckled, flattered by the bittersweet image.

"Morgan would come and steal him away from the 'boring' math to do sport," he suggested, and was rewarded by a damp laugh.

"He wouldn't get away with it for long. It would quickly devolve into a lightsabre fight," Grace said, and he could hear a slight smile in her voice. "Particularly with Morgan and Prentiss and you around – and then Michael would run rings around us."

"Actually, I _do_ have a lightsabre…"

"Of course you do. And my son… my beautiful son would find it and decide it was his."

"He'd be able to write his name out already," he said.

"He'd be perfect," she sighed, and laced her fingers with his.

"Like his mom?" Spencer asked, quietly, the words catching slightly in his throat.

"Oh, far from it," she whispered.

 _I don't know about that_ , he thought, and leaned his head against hers.

They stayed like that until the stars came out and a sudden, brief gust of wind extinguished the candles.

"Happy Birthday, baby," Grace murmured.

0o0

 _Wear your tragedies as armour, not shackles._

 _Anonymous_

 **0o0**

 **Well, another Act done : ) I have to say I'm astonished (and very excited) about all the people reading each week, and I'd just like to say thank you for that – watching that stats graph climb makes my weekend!**

 **As ever, many and much thanks must go to my lovely regular reviewers, MuggleCreator, gossamermouse101, LeopardFeather and maithili joshi 54 – you lot keep me going when I feel like I can't write anymore!**

 **The final Act of Season three is currently under production, and should (in theory) be ready to go out at some point in January, assuming the three billion other things I should be doing don't get in the way ; ) (including, if you read my other series, the beginnings of the sequel to Dreams and False Alarms and A Given Value of Safe). If you're enjoying this series, then go on and hit the 'Follow Author' button, or you won't get an update when the new story goes live!**

 **Have a very merry Yule/Christmas/Hannukah/Saturnalia/Solstice and New Year! Love and awesomeness to you all and I'll see you in January!**

 **Parlanchina xx**


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